Jennifer Atkinson
2014 Business Award Winner
Jennifer joined ITC, a family run business, in 2006 as Marketing Manager. By 2009 ITC recorded it’s biggest losses in its 35 year history as a result of declining sales, overheads that had grown out of proportion with the underlying business with the recession hitting luxury travel. Alongside these challenging trading times the chairman was diagnosed with cancer and appointed Jennifer as CEO. Less than six months later he passed away.
In her first year as CEO she had to reduce the headcount from 130 to 80 people. Then some of the senior team in the organisation decided to leave the organisation. However as a result of the changes the company broke even in 2010 and has seen phenomenal growth year on year ever since. In 2014, ITC received special awards in the Sunday Times 100 best small companies to work for Health & Wellbeing and Learning & Development.