had a passion for travel.
As a family we travelled
extensively. Every school
holiday, my parents would
take us somewhere
different.”
But Claudette finished
school early and was too
young to join an airline.
“My mum said to me:
‘Look you have to go and
study something’,” she
explains. “That was the
beginning for me.”
Talent on the hockey
field landed Claudette
a scholarship and she
completed a BCom
in Communication
Management, followed by
an Honours in Marketing
Management and a
Masters in Business
Management, specialising
in finance and operations.
She spent time working
and gaining experience
before deciding she
wanted to develop her
leadership skills. She then
went back and studied
a Masters in Business
Leadership.
Claudette’s career began
in the mining sector, but it
was surely inevitable that
she would find herself in
travel.
She started in logistics
in the mining sector
before moving to one of
the mining houses. It was
Claudette’s reluctance
to relocate when an
employer decided to move
its offices that led to her
first foray into the travel
industry.
She decided to put out
her CV and, at the time,
the Worldspan distributor
was looking for someone
with African exposure,
which she had through
the mining company, and
so she made the move.
Worldspan is a provider
of travel technology and
content and a part of the
Travelport GDS business.
“At the time, some of
the people I met in the
travel industry said: ‘Be
careful, because travel is
like a bug that bites you
and you will never leave’,”
she says. She spent about
18 months in the industry
before returning to the
mining industry. Even if
she didn’t know it at the
time, she had been bitten.
Claudette had been
working in the mining
sector in West Africa when
she decided to come back
to South Africa. “I was
looking for something to
do and I didn’t want to
get into mining in South
Africa, so I reached out
to some of my travel
colleagues and then joined
the travel industry again.”
That was just over four
years ago. “Elements like
operations, marketing,
and sales can be applied
across industries,” she
says.
She registered for a
doctorate last year, but
has put that on pause to
focus on her new role.
She says while some
people question the point
of having a PhD in the
travel industry, it’s always
been on her list. “At my
very first graduation I saw
someone get on stage
with that red cloak and I
just said to myself: ‘I have
got to have that one day’.”
Getting to know Claudette
WITH four degrees
and further studies
on the horizon,
a passion for travel and
a relentless drive to
persistently outperform
herself, it’s not surprising
that Claudette Thorne,
acting country manager of
Travelport, has managed
to scale the heights of the
travel technology industry.
She describes herself as
an eternal academic and
wildly ambitious. It shows.
Claudette attributes a
lot of her achievement to
her parents and in turn
says that her greatest
achievement will be
to impart half of the
knowledge and love that
her parents gave to her, as
a mother one day.
She grew up on the
West Rand and is the
daughter of an engineer
and a business analyst
– parents who instilled in
her a desire for learning.
She has two older
brothers, making her the
baby of the family and the
only girl.
“Initially, when I finished
school, I wanted to
become a flight steward,”
she says. “I have always
Claudette has lived in
or done business in 24
African countries.
If she could be president,
she would change the
way the elderly are
treated. “In South Africa,
we treat prisoners
better than we treat the
elderly.”
She trains a lot and is
frequently at the gym.
Like many of her
colleagues, Claudette is
a golfer but it’s actually
a sport she picked up
to spend more time with
her ageing father.
Claudette is a sand
and surf kind of person
who likes island living
while on holiday,
preferably without mobile
connection.
