Podcast Guests
Episode 5: Community Tourism
Manisha Pande
Manisha Pande is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Village Ways and a Director of ICRT (International Centre for Responsible Tourism) Global. She helped to found the ICRT India Foundation, an affiliate Centre of the International Centre for Responsible Tourism, and is also a member of the WICCI ‘National Council for Rural Tourism’. In 2005, Manisha and her husband co-founded a social enterprise, ‘Village Ways’, to help sustain the villages of the Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand in India, which were under serious threat of outmigration due to lack of livelihood opportunities. Village Ways developed a unique concept of Tourism, with focus on community ownership and participation. It has since established 40+ community-owned, small guesthouses in several Indian states and also in a remote area of Nepal. Village Ways has won several national and international awards including WTM Responsible Tourism Awards (2009, 2013, 2017, 2020, 2021), TOFT wildlife Community Award, and a Responsible Employer Award by PHD chambers of commerce and Industry government of India. With her close role in setting up the India Foundation of ICRT, Manisha is also working with several state governments in India to promote Responsible Tourism activities.
Kelly Galaski
Kelly Galaski is a sustainable tourism professional with 25 years of experience across the hospitality and tourism for-profit and non-profit sectors. From 2009 to 2020 Kelly was a member of the Planeterra programs team working with rural and Indigenous communities on community tourism experience development, and served as Director of Global Programs for four years. During that time she also developed responsible travel policies and sustainability practices for one of the world's largest adventure travel companies, G Adventures. From 2022 to 2024 Kelly served as a Sustainable Tourism Specialist at the Travel Foundation, working with destinations primarily in the United States toward achieving climate-positive and equitable tourism goals via destination stewardship strategies, climate action plans, and capacity building programs. In 2024 Kelly returned to Planeterra to serve as Senior Director of Operations & Head of Impact. Kelly is passionate about the role tourism can play in community development, empowerment of marginalized and Indigenous communities and women, nature conservation, restoration, and climate resilience, and is proud of how Planeterra works to achieve these goals everyday all over the world.
Episode 4: Partnerships for Good
Episode 3: The Future of Rail
Mark Smith
Mark Smith runs the train travel website The Man in Seat 61, www.seat61.com. A career railwayman who joined British Rail in 1987, he was the Station Manager for Charing Cross and London Bridge in the 1990s and later Customer Relations Manager for two privatised train companies. In the 2000s he worked for the Department for Transport managing the fares & ticketing team. In 2001, Mark set up a website called The Man in Seat 61 to help travellers book train travel around Europe and worldwide. With up to a million visits per month, he has run this full time since 2007.
Björn Bender
Björn Bender joined Rail Europe as CEO & Executive Chairman in November 2022. He is a mobility expert with a 20-year experience in the sector, and brought his rail expertise, customer centricity and spirit of innovation to the company. Prior to joining Rail Europe, Björn was Head of Innovation, Research and Incubation at Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) , prior to which he led the company’s business unit New Mobility Services.
Sarah Fussey
Sarah Fussey is Marketing Director of Inntravel, the original slow travel specialists. Sarah has 20 years’ experience in senior marketing and e-commerce roles in the travel and leisure sector. She was head of marketing and e-commerce at Great Rail Journeys, and prior to that was at Best Western Hotels. At Inntravel (part of Hotel Plan) she oversees the UK and international digital marketing strategy.
Episode 2: Costing Nature
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James Thornton
James Thornton is the Chief Executive Officer of Intrepid Travel, responsible for setting the strategic direction and vision of the global purpose-led business. Since joining Intrepid nearly two decades ago, James has expertly led the company through his fair share of highs and lows – from B Corp certification to a period of record growth, followed by successfully navigating the business through the pandemic and securing its record capital raise. In 2024, he led the business to its strongest year of results in its history.
Siddarth Shrikanth
Siddarth Shrikanth is an Investment Director at Just Climate dedicated to Natural Climate Solutions. With an academic background in ecology and evolutionary biology from Oxford, Siddarth began his career at McKinsey in London before co-founding Delterra, a circular economy platform seeded by McKinsey, and leading operations in Indonesia. He spent a year in Hong Kong as a foreign correspondent for the Financial Times before pursuing joint MPA/MBA degrees from the Harvard Kennedy School and Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, where co-founded a natural carbon removal start-up and consulted for the World Bank and the Singapore government on climate finance. Siddarth's book, The Case for Nature: Pioneering Solutions for the Other Planetary Crisis, was published by Penguin Random House and Duckworth in 2024.
Episode 1: Don't mention the S Word
Denise Hicks
Denise is Practice Director and Global Climate Lead at C Space, EMEA. Sshe has 20+ years’ experience in brand strategy, innovation, and sustainability. She helps businesses across multiple sectors navigate sustainability challenges, focusing on customer-centric solutions for proposition development, marketing, comms and brand strategy. Denise’s work includes leading C Space’s Climate ThinkTank and publishing ‘The S’ Word, a major sustainability research project. She is a frequent conference speaker, co-founder of the (former) Insight Climate Collective, and a former member of the DAS UK Sustainability Working Group.
Professor Xavier Font
Xavier is Professor of Sustainability Marketing at the University of Surrey. He researches and develops methods of sustainable tourism production and consumption. He has published widely about sustainable tourism certification, and has consulted on sustainable product development, marketing and communication currently serving as advisor in the Travalyst coalition of Amadeus, Booking, Google, Expedia, Mastercard, Skyscanner, Travelport, Trip, TripAdvisor and Visa. He has supervised 29 PhDs to completion. He is the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism since 2019. He has conducted over 200 courses for more than 5,000 businesses on how to market and communicate sustainability. Recently, he was the Principal Investigator for the University of Surrey for the €24.5m EU Interreg project Experience to develop low season sustainable tourism visitor experiences.