Travelodge’s top marketer leaves for Mitchells & Butler

Travelodge sales and marketing director Catriona Kempston is leaving the value hotel chain to join pub and restaurant operator Mitchells & Butler.

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Catriona Kempston to be new marketing director of Mitchells & Butler.

She will take the role of marketing director and will sit on the executive committe. Kempston takes up the role held in an interim capacity by Matthew Jenkins and will oversee brands such as Harvester, Castle and Toby Carvery. The listed company runs some 1,600 pubs and eateries nationwide.

Mitchells & Butlers’ chief executive, Alistair Darby, says: “I am certain that Catriona’s experience in driving the marketing and sales strategies behind many successful and instantly recognisable brands will be of huge value to Mitchells & Butlers.”

Kempston will not take up her new job until August after helping implement Travelodge’s long-planned new marketing campaign.

Kempston joined Travelodge in September 2012 from Europcar and her tenure has seen a relaunch of the chain’s website and reviews of both the creative and media agencies, with CHI and Initiative appointed respectively.

The company appointed Peter Gowers as its new CEO last November. He is a former chief marketing officer for InterContinental Hotels Group

Kempston was a judge for the Marketing Week Data Strategy Awards and can be seen in this video discussing the value of data analytics.

Travelodge says Kempston will be replaced.

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