Advisory Board

Department for International Trade, responsible for the marketing and communications programme for UK exports and investment including the delivery of the events programme of over 1,000 events per annum (including the prizewinning UK Pavilion at Expo Astana 2017). He was previously Marketing Director of VisitBritain, involved in the development of the award-winning GREAT Britain and NI campaign. Campaign successes include two gold and one silver awards at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. Prior to that he was Regional Director for VisitBritain’s European source markets, Head of Business Visits and Events, and Manager of Strategic Partnerships. In February 2010 he was awarded Industry Personality of the Year by the readers of Meetings and Incentive Travel.

Women and as a Shadow Work and Pensions spokesman, before standing down from the front bench at her own request at the 2010 General Election. Prior to entering the House of Lords, Trish was Vice-Chairman of the Conservative Party with responsibility for candidates where she instigated and oversaw fundamental changes in the selection procedure to increase diversity.

Trish Chairs the All Party Group for Qatar and is Deputy Chairman of the British Palestine All Party Group and Co-Chair of Women in Public Policy. She also Co-Chairs the British Kuwait Friendship Society. She is President of Medical Aid for Palestinians, the Bolton Lads and Girls Club and the National Benevolent Institution.

She recently stood down as a Chairman of the Conservative Middle East Council and has previously served as a governor of her old school, Bolton School. She was the first Chancellor of the University of Bolton and was a trustee of UNICEF UK and The Disability Partnership. She was a member of the Advisory Committee to the Abbot of Ampleforth from 1998 to 2004 and Deputy Chairman of the Salford Royal Hospitals NHS Trust from 2003 to 2007.

Trish became Chair of the World Travel Market Advisory Board in 2009. In 2011 she joined the Advisory Board of TES Global.

Trish lives in Bolton with her husband William, who is a retired judge. They are both season ticket holders and lifelong fans of Bolton Wanderers FC.

Between 2015 and 2017, Mr. Risi took a special leave from the UN to build up the global media presence of the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), based in Madrid.

An economist by training, with a post-graduate in development theory and policy (University of Hamburg, Germany), he worked for the European Union in think tanks in Germany and in Spain before entering the field of journalism. He is a lecturer in post-graduate journalism programmes. Marcelo Risi is an Uruguayan national and speaks English, German, Italian and Spanish.

Ken has held many senior Tourism positions: he was a founder member and Chair of the Tourism Society, and Chair of its Think Tank, and a former Chair of the Tourism Alliance (2009/10/11). He has been a Board member and Chair of Tourism South East, and a member of VisitBritain’s and Visit England's industry advisory groups. He has been an adviser to the UN’s International Trade Centre, on national and destination Tourism strategy development, and is a member of the World Travel Market Advisory Council. He is a Board member and Trustee of several other Tourism bodies. Ken was awarded the CBE for services to Tourism in 1997, and an Honorary Doctorate in 2014.

Her position includes leading the purchasing five-year plan for TUI Group, which ensures the optimisation of commercial contracts, the setting of capacity growth and sourcing of hotel product concepts in close liaison with source markets.

Furthermore, in 2018 Helen became a member of the Board of Trustees of the TUI Care Foundation.

Helen was previously Distribution & Cruise Director at TUI UK & Ireland (2016- 2018) and Managing Director of Thomson Cruises (2014-2016). Besides her commercial and operational responsibilities, she has been at the forefront of both the rebranding from Thomson Cruises to Marella Cruises and the introduction of Discovery, Discovery 2 and Marella Explorer into service. She has also overseen the rebrand from Thomson to TUI across all distribution channels, including over 600 agency services.

Helen’s previous positions at TUI UK & Ireland have also included Director of Ireland (2012-2014), leading and managing Ireland’s largest tour operator. Prior to this, she was Commercial & Trading Director of the Distribution Division (2008-2011), during which she held responsibility for all commercial and trading activities across the Thomson and First Choice distribution channels in the UK market. She was also Head of Integration (2007-2008) when Thomson and First Choice merged, being responsible for identifying and implementing the strategy to integrate all distribution operations across the combined group.