After 35 years of pioneering sustainable eco-tourism across Africa, Wilderness Holdings has announced a management restructure of Wilderness Safaris, to ensure that the business is adequately resourced to move forward into the next phase of development and growth for both the company and the Wilderness Group. This will ensure that Wilderness is able to achieve its goal to build further sustainable conservation economies in Africa.
Wilderness Holdings has appointed current Chief Sales Officer for Wilderness Safaris, Dave Bennett, to Head of Wilderness Safaris, taking over the day-to-day affairs of the Wilderness Safaris businesses. This will allow Keith Vincent to focus more on strategy for the greater Group, as the CEO of Wilderness Holdings. Therefore, to align with the Group’s overall strategy, Chief Marketing Officer, Chris Roche will move into a new Wilderness Holdings role in charge of all strategic and new business development.
“We are excited to initiate this next level of growth within the business, following the recent acquisition by our new major shareholders The Rise Fund and FS Investors,” commented Vincent. “As our business has grown from strength to strength over the past few years, it has become clear that Wilderness Safaris needs its own dedicated executive leadership team to manage all the operations of the company. With his extensive experience in our business and operations as a whole, Dave is well placed to lead Wilderness Safaris to new heights, and to ensure that we remain the leading eco-tourism company in Africa.”
With his immense experience in both Wilderness Safaris’ sustainability and marketing teams, and expert knowledge in biodiversity conservation, Roche, in turn, is well placed to take on the role of New Business Development for the Group. “It was important for us to appoint a senior business leader to this role, to ensure that our values and love of wildlife and conservation lie at the heart of all growth opportunities,” added Vincent.
Over the next few months, Bennett and Roche will resource their teams as required, and any new appointments and structural changes will be announced during the course of 2019.
In addition to these new changes, together with fellow Board Members Jide Olanrewaju, Mike Stone, Nick Stone and Ami Azoulay, Vincent has set up an Executive Committee of the Board to enable quick decisions for the Wilderness Holdings Group, and to drive business strategy and growth into the future.
“What remains unchanged is our commitment to conserving and restoring Africa’s wilderness and wildlife through high-end ecotourism. We will also ensure that our Wilderness Culture remains the same throughout all businesses. I am looking forward to an exciting year ahead and investing strongly into the next tier of leadership in both Wilderness Safaris and the Group,” concluded Vincent.
