Lee Haslett succeeds Mr. Leslie Peden.
The company is also strengthening the sales department in Greece.
Celestyal, the award-winning and recognized number one cruise choice in the Greek Islands and the Eastern Mediterranean, has announced the appointment of Mr Lee Haslett to the role of Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) from 20 February 2023. Lee Haslett succeeds Mr .Leslie Peden, who has been with the company for more than five years, first as Vice President for North America and then as the company's General Commercial Manager. At the same time, Celestyal strengthens the sales department in Greece with Mr. Haris Brusalian taking over as Business Development Manager.
Mr. Lee Haslett is a highly experienced executive in the tourism industry, with a wide range of experiences coming from tourism businesses and airlines. He moves to Celestyal from Virgin, where he has been part of the Virgin Holidays team since 2008, initially as head of retail sales development, before taking on various other roles within the business, including Director of Sales and VP of Product and Distribution. Most recently, Lee was Vice President of International Sales at Virgin Atlantic, where he led the sales transformation plan, focused on key markets in North America and Europe, and played an important role in the company's commercial management team. He will report to Mr. Chris Theofilidis, CEO of Celestyal and will be based in the United Kingdom, while “split” his time between the US, the main European markets and Greece.
“As we focus on strengthening an integrated vacation proposition that emphasizes creating unique travel experiences across a rich portfolio of destinations, we also continue to develop our commercial team to meet new challenges,” said Chris Theofilidis. “I would like to express my thanks and gratitude to Leslie for his significant contribution to ensuring Celestyal's future successes. He has been an integral part of the company's senior management team and we wholeheartedly wish him the best in his new endeavours.”
“I am delighted to announce the hiring of Lee Haslett and welcome him to Celestyal. Lee comes to the company at an important time as we step up our efforts, investing in significantly expanding Celestyal's presence in our key markets. Going through a period of substantial strengthening of Celestyal's commercial team, Lee will oversee a team of more than 60 travel industry professionals spanning the full spectrum of the company's commercial activities globally, including sales, strategic business development, marketing, public relations, the call center, as well as revenue management. We are also very pleased with the addition of Haris Brusalian to the sales team in Greece, who with his experience will add value to the expansion of our network in the Greek market.
We look forward to making new and exciting announcements in the near future as we continue our journey to strengthen Celestyal's position as the leading and award-winning provider of multi-destination holiday experiences in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean that the company has become established for.” added Mr. Theofilidis.
Haris Brusalian.
It should be noted that Mr. Brusalian will report to Vassilis Karachalios Head of Sales Greece and will be responsible for the development of Celestyal's footprint in Southern Greece, as well as to continue cultivating relationships with Destination Management Companies (DMC). Haris studied Hotel Management at the University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom and in addition to his native Greek, he is fluent in English and German. Before joining Celestyal, he worked for several years at GTP (Greek Travel Pages, a tourist guide in Greece) as Sales and Marketing Director. Most recently he held the role of Director of Development and Marketing at Best Western Hotel & Resorts in Greece and previously at Booking.com as Global Accounts Manager, while for several years he had worked in the hotel industry in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
