Hilton confirms Africa and Indian Ocean team changes

Ansu Du Plessis has been appointed regional director of revenue management in Africa & Indian Ocean. Ms Du Plessis has over two decades of experience in the hospitality industry and joined Hilton back in November 2017 as cluster commercial director based in Cape Town and then later moved to Sandton to oversee the Southern Africa cluster. In this role she was responsible for maximising hotel revenues from all income sources by assisting hotel teams in business analysis, strategic and tactical planning and execution.

“Ansu is a high-performing revenue manager with a wealth of experience in revenue optimisation, sales and marketing, franchise operations and brand management. She is recognised for her ability to maximise top line revenue and market share growth and is an effective leader as well as a strong team contributor,” said Jan Van Der Putten, vice president operations, Africa and Indian Ocean.

Prior to this her career path has included a number of roles with other international hotel chains and travel companies. Ms Du Plessis also has successfully completed Shine Development, a Hilton program that is designed to support identified internal talent in their progression towards senior roles.

Following Ms Du Plessis’ promotion, Cindy Valentine has been appointed commercial director in Southern Africa. Ms Valentine most recently served as director of sales for the shared services sales team, managing the key accounts for Hilton across the portfolio.

“Cindy has been a key player in the success of our SA hotels in the last few years and as Director of Sales has been instrumental in growing our performance. She has successfully completed Shine Development and is well positioned to support our teams in the hotels,” Mr Van Der Putten said.

A 21-year hospitality veteran, Ms Valentine began her career with Hilton in March 1998 as a sales executive. She grew within the Hilton sales team to the position of director of sales in 2009, and later in July 2012 she was promoted to cluster director of sales for Southern Africa heading up a team of 14 people.