Devi Virdi
Head of Diversity & Inclusion at Women in Hospitality & Travel-Tech
Devi is Head of Diversity & Inclusion at Women in Hospitality & Travel-Tech and is responsible for the development and delivery of the global diversity & inclusion roadmap across the organisation and its partners.
With over 20+ years of experience in the hospitality and travel-tech industry across sales, marketing, HR, operations, revenue management and partnerships, she believes being dynamic, bold and courageous in today’s business environment is key to achieving lasting success. With a background in HR, her career has taken her to a number of global hotel chains starting out in HR at a leading international hotel chain then pivoting to commercial roles with Starwood and AccorHotels where she led the Global Sales Business travel team successfully, to a leading travel management company. Most recently at HRS, Devi was Managing Director for Northern Europe, leading the commercial, operational and people functions for the region. D&I has been key objective across all her roles to date.
Devi sits on a number of UK and Global committees; part of the LEVEL UK Advisory Board, she is an advocate for creating a level playing field to support gender balance in the UK business travel industry as well as co supporting the diversity and inclusion committee with TAMS; the Travel and Meetings Society in business travel. Devi most recently was a mentor with Women in Travel CiC.
Originally from Hong Kong, with both Indian and Chinese heritage, she studied in Australia and has been in the UK for over 20 years, giving her a great insight in cross-cultural and cross-regional nuances and has supported her across leading global regions successfully in her roles. She now lives in Greater London with her family and two young children.