Interviews of the Year

Tallink Duty Free’s Eve Purge – Through the Red Door with Elizabeth Arden

Our popular series Through the Red Door in association with Elizabeth Arden – compiled by Associate Editor Colleen Morgan – uncovers the stories behind leading women in the travel retail industry, and blends the personal and the professional.

One of many in-depth features this year tells the tale of Tallink Duty Free Head of Business Development and Purchasing, Travel Retail Eve Purge, who talks about her love of the sea, her fascination with brands and how she was introduced to the world of retail. Click here for the full story.

Areas’ Mathieu Herrero on corporate spirit, building the brand and people serving people

In this interview with The Moodie Davitt Report President Dermot Davitt, Areas Concepts & Standards Worldwide Director Mathieu Herrero talks about brand strategy, putting culinary first and the ‘Areas Spirit’ today as the €2 billion-plus turnover F&B player eyes its next phase of growth. Full story here.

Propelling Vienna into the top echelon of world airports

Vienna Airport’s €420 million southern terminal expansion will deliver exciting commercial opportunities, as Senior Business Editor Mark Lane discovers in conversation with Senior Vice President Centre Management Philipp Ahrens. Full story here.

How Andrey Zubko and Biosota Organics are making a beeline for travel retail

Move over XO Cognac and high-end Scotch whisky, there’s a new ultra-premium contender coming to the world’s duty-free shelves. Meet the remarkable Andrey Zubko, together with his wife Oxana the proprietor of Biosota Organics, an Australian company specialising in MGO 2100+ other Manuka honey variations. In the apiculture world, Manuka honey MGO 2100+ is the liquid gold standard and Zubko believes such ultra-premium positioning is ideally suited to the travel retail channel. Full story here.

Marc Chaya on Maison Francis Kurkdjian and “the genius of creativity”

From a chance meeting between a renowned perfumer and a global telecoms markets expert in 2009, one of the more unlikely successes of the 21st-century fragrance industry was born. Maison Francis Kurkdjian, founded in 2009 by the perfumer in question, Francis Kurkdjian, and then-Ernst & Young Paris partner Marc Chaya, has since blossomed into one of the most respected, positively disruptive and successful players in the luxury fragrance market.

In a compellingly candid and deeply human exchange, Chaya tells The Moodie Davitt Report Founder & Chairman Martin Moodie about a long-term approach to return on investment rather than seeking instant reward; avoiding “destructive and toxic launch fever”; and how embracing differences can bring light to the world rather than darkness. Full story here.