Category: Leadership

Meet the Execs: Charlotte Horne, Group Legal Director

We are thrilled to welcome Charlotte Horne, Group Legal Director, to our Leadership team at Secret Escapes. Charlotte brings with her 11 years of experience within the legal world having previously worked as a corporate and commercial lawyer at a London-based law firm. We sat down to find out a little more about life for Charlotte both inside and outside of SE.

Tell us a little more about your journey at Secret Escapes

I joined in 2018 as the second lawyer in the business. It was quite a broad role covering everything from new products and territories to commercial contracts and customer complaints, plus a few extensive, disruptive new laws that were coming in (including GDPR!). There has been a huge amount of group growth over the years with acquisitions such as EML and Travelbird and as a result, my role grew alongside this.

I was then made Senior Legal Counsel and our team further expanded. I then moved into the role as Head of Legal when my predecessor left in 2022, which was slightly hectic (and unexpected) as I was also three months pregnant at the time. I had to hire my mat leave cover, grow the existing team and prepare for a child all at once – it’s safe to say I was a little overwhelmed!

It’s amazing to have another woman on our Leadership Team. Do you feel there are still any barriers or challenges for women in Senior Leadership roles?

I think the biggest barrier for myself personally is imposter syndrome and I think a lot of women can probably relate. I talk a lot about making your own luck and actively seeking out roles/opportunities to develop and challenge yourself. Being out of your comfort zone is great for development and allows you to see what you’re really capable of.

However, imposter syndrome really is a barrier to that, especially if all you’re seeing is males in that position or role that you’re wanting to step into.

I felt that a lot when I moved into the Head of Legal role. My first reaction to it was questioning whether I was ready for it, focussing so much on what the previous Head of Legal (who was male) was like in that role.

I had a lot of coaching and went through a process to realise that I didn’t need to step into my predecessor’s shoes at all, but recognise why I was the right for it and what I could bring to it instead. I can truthfully say I didn’t feel this doubt moving into Leadership however and I am delighted to be another woman on the team alongside Louise Nolder.

What’s been the biggest challenge in your career to date?

I think it follows on from the above – the transition into Head of Legal was probably the hardest part of my career. My first reply genuinely was ‘but do you know I’m pregnant?’. I just assumed that this would be a barrier. It was also quite challenging finding my mat cover – I literally had candidates asking whether I was planning to come back, whether this would be a permanent role and this really played into my personal fears and imposter syndrome at the time.

I had to hire a new team, get them comfortable with the transition and then prepare the whole team for my mat leave cover and it all felt very daunting. Also, when you invest so much time in creating a team you are really excited about, it then feels so scary having to hand that over to someone else. Thankfully my mat cover did an amazing job and the team is so strong now.

It’s so easy to underestimate what a huge deal it is to step away from a role for a year and then the challenges you face coming back after what feels like so much time off at the time. Not to mention, you are a new mum and facing new challenges outside of work too.

What are you most excited about for this new position?

Our team works across the wider business and has a lot of touch points with so many roles. So I am excited to have the opportunity to be more strategic and bring new ideas and solutions to different areas and teams.

I think I’m really excited about the broader company strategy and how I can bring a different perspective to this too. We have a great, really experienced leadership team that have a wealth of experience and I’m excited to learn more from them all.

How would you describe the culture at SE in 3 words?

Stimulating, supportive, resilient

What’s your favourite travel destination?

Val D’Isere, as this is where I met my husband. In a big cliche fashion I was on holiday with friends and he was one of the chalet managers… we also got engaged there (not on the same trip for the record!)

I have lots of special memories there and although we’re skiing next year, we are actually going to La Plagne. Our daughter will be two and a half and we’ve bought her a unicorn ski suit with wings… we’re yet to know if she can ski, but least she will look cute!

What is life like outside of SE?

A lot crammed in! Especially with Sofia (my 2 year old), mainly all manner of family logistics! As a family, we all love being active so a typical weekend involves me having some downtime and going to CrossFit and then rushing back to take Sofia swimming / soft play / all the activities after that! However, I am also a HUGE fan of soft play as I get to be a big kid and go in with her…it still feels very novel!

We will usually also take a long walk as a family…and by long, I mean in terms of time as it takes her HOURS to do a tiny lap round a pond near home! Followed by a roast with family and friends.

Meet our Director of Global Contracting, Dan Evans –

Want to know more about what it’s like to work at Secret Escapes? Have a read of our “Meet the Execs” series to understand more about the day-to-day challenges, hurdles and successes, what it’s like to be a part of their team and to learn about their own career development while getting a little insight into what your future career could have instore for you.

How long have you been at Secret Escapes, and how long in your current role as Director of Global Contracting? 

I was the first employee of Secret Escapes – I’m coming up to 11 years in the business!

What’s the biggest risk you have taken in your career and has it paid off?

The biggest risk I’ve taken in my career was joining Secret Escapes! When I joined, there was no company, no website, nothing! I spent my first morning in the job building my desk! I think it’s pretty safe to say that it paid off!

What has been the best career development opportunity for you here at SE?

I’ve been able to develop from a contracts manager into someone who leads large teams so that is the biggest development opportunity. The scale of my role has developed in line with the scale of the business. 

What is most important to you when fostering your team culture?

Most important for me is transparency – people need to be able to speak their minds and feel comfortable sharing their issues and problems. That’s the only way we can improve. In return, the leaders need to be able to explain decisions and reasoning honestly. Then, even if someone disagrees they at least understand. 

What have been some of your favourite projects or recent successes? 

I particularly enjoyed taking Secret Escapes into new territories, whether that was by opening new points of sale or sourcing hotels in a certain destination for the first time. I was lucky enough to be heavily involved with this work in the early days. More recently, I’m really proud of the way we’ve bounced back from Covid with a new model and ways of working. 

What do you enjoy most about your job and why? What about the challenges?

I’m a hotel and travel geek so I absolutely love that side of it but I also love working with people all over the world, both internally and externally. That diversity also brings lots of complexity though – it’s not easy staying on top of all the different teams, projects and plans! 

What does a typical day look like in the life of a Director of Global Contracting at SE? 

If you find out please let me know! I love the fact that almost every day is different depending on the team or the project that’s the current focus. The one constant is ensuring that we’re on track to hit our targets, or working on solutions if we’re not. 

What’s one thing that sets SE apart from other companies?

I think the trust that we put in every employee is quite unique – everyone has the power to control their own part of the business and make it grow. 

What is the one stand-out thing you look for in a candidate?

The ability to learn. Experience is great but as long as someone is open to learning new things there’s not much that can’t be taught. 

What is the best thing about your team?

The diversity. I love working with lots of people from different countries and backgrounds with different skills and unique outlooks on things. 

What is one piece of advice you would give to other professionals?

Take a risk if you think there’s a chance of big success further down the line – those steady jobs at big established companies will still be there if it doesn’t work out. 

Where’s your next travel destination and why?

Anywhere would be nice right now but I’m lucky enough to have a trip to Cornwall planned for the Summer! Covid cost me several holidays last year so I want to organise those again – Corfu is the first on the list.

Meet the Execs: Eirik Pettersen – Chief Technology Officer

Want to know more about what it’s like to work at Secret Escapes? Have a read of our “Meet the Execs” series to understand more about the day-to-day challenges, hurdles and successes, what it’s like to be a part of their team and to learn about their own career development while getting a little insight into what your future career could have instore for you.

How long have you been at Secret Escapes, and how long in your current role as Chief Technology Officer? 

I joined SE in September 2017, when I took over from the previous CTO. 

What’s the biggest risk you have taken in your career and has it paid off?

In 1999 I resigned from my consulting job to start a company with some of my university friends.  I went 6 months without being paid, but 15 years later we sold the company to Yell so, yes it did pay off quite well in the end!

What has been the best career development opportunity for you here at SE?

What’s been so exciting about working at SE is being part of a company that’s in multiple countries with multiple business units.  I went from leading a platform with one product and one(ish) country to keeping on top of multiple platforms with different business models and that has been quite the learning curve!

What is most important to you when fostering your team culture?

The tech team has built on top of the core values of SE to capture the tech-specific values and behaviours and what’s important to us is that we really do live by them.  One of our practises for instance is a monthly ‘Stars and Fails’ session.  We give ‘stars’ to our colleagues for their “good deeds”, and we put ourselves forwards for the ‘fails’ to shout about our mistakes.  This is to reinforce a sense of ‘psychological safety’ in the team, which is shown to be a good predictor of team performance.

What have been some of your favourite projects or recent successes?

There have been so many step changes over the years that have advanced the platform that it’s hard to pick a favourite!  A real significant project ongoing at the moment is the re-platforming of Travelist, one of the group companies, on to our ‘Tracy’ platform.  That’s exciting as it’s an important step towards consolidating a portfolio of group-wide applications.  This project also impacts Horizon, which is our move to a decoupled frontend architecture, which in layperson’s terms means we should be able to innovate more quickly on our user experience and again be able to share our work across the group.

What do you enjoy most about your job and why? What about the challenges?

There are two things that stand out.  Firstly, my colleagues – it is a pleasure to work with such intelligent and thoughtful people.  They keep me on my toes all while having a good laugh along the way.  And secondly it’s what we do.  We make it possible for people to have experiences and create memories beyond what they would have normally expected to be able to afford.

In terms of challenge, I guess the perennial issue is building up and retaining the team.  The employment market for engineers is frothy and you are competing with a lot of companies over the same resources, but I am confident we have a lot to offer which is evidenced by a whole bunch of veteran team members who’ve stayed with us way beyond industry averages!

What does a typical day look like in the life of a Chief Technology Officer at SE? 

My role is quite a mix of operational and strategic.  I could be thinking through our 5-year plan one minute, and dealing with a website outage the next – it’s certainly never boring!  I don’t unfortunately get much time to get into some coding anymore, which I do miss.  But we have a collaborative architecture and system design process via workshops and design documents so I still get to make technical contributions.

What’s one thing that sets SE apart from other companies?

I really enjoy the conviviality at SE, we like to work hard and play hard and that works because we have such a friendly and inclusive atmosphere.

What is the one stand-out thing you look for in a candidate?

We always look to see our company values reflected in our candidates – and that will generally trump pure knowledge or skill.

What is the best thing about your team?

Two things that really impress me about the team is their resilience and ingenuity; they don’t give up easily, no matter the challenge, pulling from their creative reserves.

What is one piece of advice you would give to other professionals?

We spend so much time at work, it’s important to make sure you are doing something that you love so you can enjoy the journey as much as the destination.

Where’s your next travel destination and why?

My next trip will be to visit family in Florida and South Carolina – haven’t seen my mum, brother or my sister and her family for coming up to 2 years!