Ken Tse: Bringing it all back home

by Martin Moodie |
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Martin Moodie

Martin Moodie is the Founder & Chairman of The Moodie Report.

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Great to see Ken Tse back in the business.

This morning’s announcement by LS travel retail Pacific that they’ve secured Ken’s services as Head of Operations – Duty Free & Luxury represents a masterstroke by General Manager Ivo Favotto.

Ivo knows Ken well from their shared time at The Nuance Group and will have been delighted at the timing of the latter’s return to Melbourne to be with his family. But could the stars align? First, LS needed a big contract win to be able to lure and afford the former Nuance-Watson Singapore Managing Director. Via the Auckland Airport duty free contract, announced last Friday, they got it.

As I noted in my original story, Ken is both popular and respected. His relationship with an always demanding Changi Airport Group was consistently excellent over 13 years; brands knew he could be tough but was always fair; peer retailers found they could discuss common issues in a non-parochial way with him.

As I have discovered many times down the years, Ken’s also got great knowledge and insight relating to travel retail, gleaned from his many years with Nuance-Watson and before that DFS.

LS travel retail Pacific will now benefit from those qualities. So will Auckland Airport. So it’s a case of welcome home Ken but also welcome to Godzone country (New Zealand of course), where I suspect you’ll be spending an awful lot of your time.