Take2Eton Group has appointed Max Hensser as chief customer experience officer, a newly created role with effect from 10 September; this is an executive appointment, not a transaction, and no deal consideration or counterparty arises.

Take2Eton Group is a privately owned, independent travel management company founded by chairman Chris Thelen in 2021 through the merger of TakeTwo Travel Solutions and Eton Travel, headquartered in Wokingham, Berkshire with offices in London, Cork and the United States, employing more than 100 people.

BTN Europe's 2025 rankings place Take2Eton 21st in the UK by gross sales, with 2024 UK gross sales of £71 million (up from £62.5 million in 2023) and European gross sales of €98.6 million. EBITDA is not publicly disclosed. The group processes in excess of 137,000 transactions annually. Hensser joins from Reed & Mackay, where he spent more than 20 years, most recently global director of client experience. Incoming CEO Julie Oliver, also from Reed & Mackay, will be his direct line manager. Advisors: none mentioned.

The structural driver is consolidation pressure in the mid-market TMC sector, where independent operators face a binary strategic choice: compete on client retention against mega-TMCs or be absorbed by them. Take2Eton's proposition is the former, and creating a dedicated CCO role codifies client experience as a commercial function rather than a service aspiration, a move that makes sense only if the business is scaling fast enough to require explicit governance over it. UK gross sales growth of 13.6% year on year in 2024 suggests it is.

The Reed & Mackay double hire, Hensser following Oliver into the business, is a deliberate talent acquisition from a direct competitor. Reed & Mackay is a premium mid-market TMC owned by TUI Group, operating in the same high-touch corporate segment. Bringing in two senior executives with deep Reed & Mackay client relationships simultaneously is a structured competitive move, not coincidence.

Hensser's remit spanning client experience, strategic partnerships and growth strategy makes this a commercially weighted role, suggesting Take2Eton is building client-facing infrastructure ahead of an accelerated new business push under Oliver.

The appointment signals that Take2Eton has reached the size at which informal service culture requires formal commercial architecture and that it has chosen to build that architecture using talent extracted directly from its nearest comparable competitor.

Source: businesstravelnewseurope.com / take2eton.com