New recruit gets back to her roots

Melanie Sandes started her career in South Africa working for the country’s largest group of travel agents. With 13 years of marketing experience now under her belt, she is finally getting back to her travel roots here at Phoenix.

Melanie has joined us as an account director and brings with her a huge range of experience having worked in the travel, leisure, food & drink, technology and automotive industries. Her career clients have included Sure Travel Group, Stellenbosch Farmers Winery and BP South Africa, which involved two years launching BP express shops across the country.

In 2000, Melanie swapped her life in South Africa for the bright lights of London, where she worked as a freelancer for high profile clients such as Coca Cola and Lycos UK. After realising that ‘the big smoke’ wasn’t for her, Melanie moved to Surrey. She went on to spend five years working on automotive accounts such as Honda, Land Rover, Vauxhall, Saab and Chevrolet. Her projects included running the marketing service for 200 Honda dealers across the UK; launching new models and getting involved in corporate sales and finance.

Melanie joined us last month to head up the First Choice and Island Cruises accounts.