G Adventures hires new director in sales team shake-up

G Adventures has hired Rachel Coffey as sales director for EMEA in a shake-up of its sales team that also sees Stu Darnley promoted to national sales manager.

Coffey replaces Uday Sodha in the position, who left the operator in July. She has more than 14 years at Virgin Atlantic including as ‘country manager’ for West Africa.

Brian Young, managing director for EMEA at G Adventures, said: “Rachel brings lots of experience in terms of strategy planning – and she’s a big fan of G and has been on our tours in the past.”

G Adventures has taken the opportunity to reshuffle its sales team, with Stu Darnley moving up to the newly-created role of national sales manager.

He will sit between Coffey and the eight-strong sales team, who he will support and develop as well as oversee their partnerships with travel agents.

Darnley has moved up within the G Adventures ranks since joining as a travel consultant in the call centre in 2013.

“Stu’s a real success story for G,” added Young. “He’s been promoted from within and his rise shows our commitment to developing people’s careers. He’s passionate about our business, knows it inside out, is excellent in terms of relationships with trade partners and has demonstrated his leadership skills.

“We want our sales team to be the best in the industry. This [reshuffle] is all part of our commitment to our trade partners, working more closely and having deeper, more meaningful relationships. This sector [touring and adventures] is growing massively and the key bit for me is making sure we have a great team in place to fully support our agent partners.”