Exclusive with TTC CEO John Veitch

We’re still buzzing from all the excitement and inspiration left over from International Women’s day yesterday.

Particularly, all the amazing speakers we saw at the Jito Connected International Women’s Day event – Inspiring Greatness.

Not only were the speakers fantastic, but the food was bloody delicious AND we got to enjoy all the great things on offer while surrounded by hundreds of strong and inspirational women and a sprinkling of supportive men keen to champion the cause.

int womens day event

We managed to convince one of these change-making men, CEO of the Travel Corporation (TTC) John Veitch, to sit down with us for a chat not long after making his keynote speech.

Veitch’s speech centred around a concept many professional women are familiar with – imposter syndrome.

“It’s something that impacts all of us, men women, everyone,” Veitch said.

“Basically, its when you walk into a meeting and you feel like ‘oh my gosh I’m an imposter, everyone knows so much more than me, how could I have anything to add’, so you retreat into your shell and don’t give out opinions or thoughts.”

“It’s something we need to overcome as an industry, sometimes the person I really want to hear from is a woman and sometimes the impostor syndrome descends, and I don’t get to hear her opinions and we all lose there.”

Veitch told us he would like to see a change in the disproportionate number of women in leadership roles.

“We need more women leaders in senior roles,” he said.

“And we need that to be in proportion to the number of women in the industry.”

“It should be in proportion.”

“I think it’s a complex pathway and there’s a number of issues we need to overcome to get there but I think we should strive towards that.”

And what is TTC doing to help women overcome impostor syndrome and reach those leadership roles?

Veitch told us they have already implemented a few ideas they picked up at last year’s International Women’s day event, plus a few of their own.

One of these ideas is called Women to Watch.

“Women to Watch is a sort of lunch and learn type event where we get a mix of personal and professional development for everyone within TTC, everybody’s welcome, but it is focused on women and we get leaders and people across our business to talk about their career,” he told us.

“They talk about how they developed their pathway, sharing their experiences and they’ve learned so everyone in the room can go ‘wow that’s great, that resonates with me and it will help me develop myself and grow myself'”

Veitch said TTC also has some great initiatives in place to help women during maternity leave.

“We have a mentoring program for women returning to work post parental leave, so they’re mentored by someone who’s also done that in the past, which helps them overcome some of the challenges as they transition back into TTC,” he said.

“We also have a program we call Keep in Touch.”

“To keep in touch with mothers on maternity leave during the time they’re away.”

“We invite them back into the office to keep in touch with strategy, to keep in touch with what’s going on in the business, so they don’t feel detached and so they continue to feel engaged in the business.”

“It makes the transition back to work easier.”

Veitch acknowledged how lucky we are as an industry to have such a large proportion of women, which makes it easier to prioritise championing change.

“I do fundamentally believe that the travel industry, where we have a high proportion of women, can leave the way,” he said.

“We can set the standard for other industries across corporate Australia.”

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Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

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