After an 18-year run with Adelman Travel Group and a career spanning positions from general manager of operations to general manager, vice president, executive vice president and chief operating officer, Steve Cline took over as company president in February.
Cline joined the Adelman Travel family with both a personal and professional interest to ignite change in an industry and a company teeming with potential.
“I saw a lot of opportunity in a young company where I could incorporate some of my past experiences, and that’s continuing along with my career growth and objectives,” he said.
Cline, who is a certified travel consultant and a certified travel industry executive, launched his career in the travel industry in the early 1980s when corporate travel was just in its infancy.
“That was just about the inception of corporate travel when corporate travel started to become a little bit more structured and separate from leisure travel,” Cline said.
His background in the industry includes working as a supervisor of customer service at American Express and as a director of group air, operations manager and account manager at BCD Travel.
Cline, whose favorite getaway is Florence, Italy, currently serves as a member on the Executive Travel Corporate Travel Agent and Planner Advisory Board.
As he rolls out his leadership responsibilities as president at Adelman Travel, he will devote part of his attention to educating other industry professionals about the breadth of offerings that today’s leading corporate travel management firms provide.
“One of the things that I want to be involved in is helping other industries and other positions within our own customers as well learn more about what the full array of services are that Adelman can offer,” Cline said. Services like writing companies’ travel policies, benchmarking negotiations on supplier agreements, monitoring service levels and traveler experiences, and monitoring duty of care obligations.
“Our business has taken on a much more proactive role…(as) opposed to fulfilling airline tickets and hotel reservations as we did 20 years ago,” Cline said. “Now, travel management companies must consult with their customers and continually offer solutions to overcome challenges. And our customers want us to impact behavior and then monitor and report on these key performance indicators.”
