Innovation Summit and Launch winners, plus highlights from week one of Phocuswright Europe Online 2020

Earlier this week, Phocuswright Europe Online 2020 began with the Young Leaders Summit and Diversity in Leadership program. The Young Leaders Summit, moderated by Aurelie Krau of Festive Road, featured over 30 bright minds under the age of 35 who were accepted based on their accomplishments and vision for the future of travel. 

The Diversity in Leadership program began with an Executive Interview with the Chairwoman of Booking.com, Gillian Tans. During this interview, led by PhocusWire's news editor Jill Menze, Gillian Tans (the seventh employee at the mega OTA) discussed how allyship and company culture and leadership contributes to more diversity and inclusion in travel companies. 

This interview was followed by a panel moderated by Jamie-Lee Abtar, executive director, BAME Women in Travel, who asked panelists how to move diversity in leadership from a “nice to have to something that is business critical". She was joined by Tayo Arewa, a consultant HR director, Simon Gallow, advocate, UN Women U.K., Kristina Liburd, founder and CEO of the startup Viageur, and Lauren von Stackelberg, global head of inclusion and diversity at Expedia Group. Highlights from the session can be found here, via PhocusWire. 

The main event on September 3rd was the Phocuswright Innovation Summit and Launch competitions that featured 8 innovators from the EMEA region. The full roster can be found here. 

Congratulations to the following Phocuswright Innovation winners:

SUMMIT
The People's Choice Award (winner selected by audience voting): Hotelmize
Most Innovative Startup (winner selected by the Dragons): Iomob

LAUNCH
The People's Choice Award (winner selected by audience voting): HalalBooking

If you'd like to see any of these sessions on-demand, there's still time to register for the event here. Plus, you'll have time to build your schedule around the Center Stage events, happening next week on September 9th and 10th. Register for the event here. (Take a look at the comments and attendee experience from Twitter here). 

See the full Phocuswright Europe Online 2020 program here. 

We hope you join us next week for Center Stage. We will resume our regular publishing of Research Insights Article following the event.