ALWAYS full of energy
and enthusiasm and so
unquestionably at the top of
her game, Mary Shilleto, ceo of
Thompsons Travel, is now preparing
to hand over the Thompsons reins
in order to begin the next chapter
of her life.
Mary started her career at SAA,
where she worked for seven
years, moving through a number
of departments. She spent a few
years with Japan Airlines and
worked part time for KLM when her
two children were small.
She then took a morning job
at International Travels where
she worked for many years,
attributing much of her knowledge
of customer service to industry
stalwart, Tony Tomasicchio.
At 40 Mary decided to go out
on her own, opening up a retail
agency called Wisdom Travel
for Logans. When Logans went
bust a few years later, Mary paid
off all their creditors overnight
and moved the agency, all the
consultants and clients to the
Micor Travel Group. Some of the
consultants who started out with
Wisdom Travel have remained
with Mary ever since, with some
relationships stretching back 20
years or more.
A few years later the agency
merged with Seekers and Mary
went on to run the agency’s
corporate and franchising
department, eventually handing
over to Tourvest’s Morné du Preez,
when she moved over to the then
small corporate department at
Thompsons Travel.
She later took over as ceo for
Thompsons Retail, overseeing
its national leisure, corporate,
groups and incentives divisions for
Cullinan Holdings.
Over the past 15 years in this
role, Mary has grown the business
to a team of 90 people with growth
in turnover of more than 800%.
Mary feels at ease with her
decision to move on to the next
chapter of her life, saying she
would never have dreamt that she
would live such a life of privilege,
being exposed to so much during
her career.
She has been married to Michael
for 46 years and is a proud mother
to Gina (36) and Marc (34) and
grandmother to Sophia, Levi and
Holly. While Mary may continue
with some part-time consulting,
she is also looking forward to
spending more guilt-free time with
her grandchildren and continuing
to explore beautiful South Africa.
“I am an all-or-nothing person,
which means that this job has
always been an all-or-nothing
position. I feel ready to step down
from 12- and 15-hour days and to
walk away confident that our tightly
knit team will continue to run
things smoothly.”
As a ceo, Mary says the people
she works with are the business.
“I have tried to be trustworthy
and to take accountability, to work
as hard as my team does and to
build strong but straight-talking
relationships with our partners.
“Despite the ever-growing
pace of technological changes,
our role as agents is still about
providing good service, using the
tools that are available to us and
maintaining personal relationships
with our clients. Sometimes we
make mistakes in life and it is
those relationships that allow us
to apologise and to continue to
be trusted even when the ball
is occasionally dropped,” she
explained with characteristic
humility.
Mary has travelled the world
extensively, beginning on her
honeymoon with Michael, where
the couple visited Japan, Taiwan,
the Greek isles and England,
foregoing a big wedding in order to
see more of the world. Since then,
Mary has visited six continents
and travelled extensively. Some
of these highlights have been a
Delta Air Lines trip to watch Royal
Ascot from the Queen’s Enclosure
and sitting with Travelport at the
finishing line of the Formula 1 GP
in Abu Dhabi. Another highlight
was the 46th anniversary trip,
where she and Michael travelled to
Phuket with six couples who had
attended their wedding decades
earlier.
Getting to know Mary
Mary is an outdoor girl who is
looking forward to having more
time to walk, cycle and garden.
Characteristically, when her
husband, Michael, suffered a
stroke 10 years ago, the couple
refused to let the experience get
the better of them.
Michael now paints magnificently
with his non-dominant hand
and instead of giving up on
travelling, the couple instead
learned the tricks to travelling
with disabilities.
Mary is a self-declared open
book, saying there isn’t much
that she could share with TNW
that everyone doesn’t already
know about her.
She has been a board member
of the XL group since 2005 and
took over Dudley Randall’s place
as chairperson when he died in
2016. Mary says it has been a
huge privilege to work with ceo,
Marco Ciocchetti, and a super
group of agents.
She was honoured at the Asata
awards this year with an award
for Exceptional Commitment.
Some of Mary’s favourite
authors are Jennifer Hobbs,
Khaled Hosseini and Paulo
Coelho.
She avidly reads any travelrelated
reading material and is
a loyal subscriber to all travel
magazines.
