A 60 minute discovery call

DISCOVERY CALL TRANSCRIPT
Corporate Traveller (Flight Centre Travel Group) to Brightwell Therapeutics
Mia Donnelly, Business Development Manager (Corporate Traveller)
David Chen, Office and Travel Manager (Brightwell Therapeutics, ~250 staff, clinical-stage biotech)
Duration 58 minutes. Video call.

[00:00] Mia: David, thanks so much for making the time today. I know you blocked out an hour, does that still work on your end?
[00:08] David: Yep, I'm good for the hour. Might have to glance at Slack once or twice but you've got me.
[00:14] Mia: Perfect, I appreciate it. Here's what I was hoping we could do. For most of this I just want to understand how travel actually works at Brightwell today, what's going well, what's painful, and where you want to be. If it feels like there's a fit, the end goal would be to agree on whether a deeper session with your team makes sense. If it's not a fit, I'll tell you that too. Does that sound okay?
[00:36] David: That sounds great, honestly. I've sat through a lot of these where someone just pitches at me for an hour.
[00:43] Mia: I promise not to do that. So let me start broad. Tell me about Brightwell and how travel fits into what you all are doing right now.
[00:52] David: Sure. So we're a clinical-stage biotech, about 250 people now, we were 140 eighteen months ago. We've got two lead programs in trials, which means a lot of travel to clinical sites, CROs, and investigator meetings. Plus the usual, conferences, investor stuff, board travel. It's grown really fast and travel kind of grew with it without anyone really designing it.
[01:18] Mia: That growth curve is a lot. When you say it grew without anyone designing it, what does booking actually look like day to day right now?
[01:27] David: It's messy. We have a TMC, our current provider, that we have used for about three years. But honestly a lot of bookings happen around them. We have eight EAs and ops coordinators across the company, and each of them books for their teams. Some use the TMC's online tool, some just go to the airline site directly because the tool is clunky, some email the TMC agents. So it's all over the place.
[01:55] Mia: So the tool exists but people route around it. What makes them route around it, in your view?
[02:03] David: Speed, mostly. The online tool is slow and the agents take a while to come back, especially for anything complex like a multi-city clinical site trip. So people just do it themselves to save time. Which then means we have no idea what we're spending until the card statements come in.
[02:22] Mia: Got it. So there's a visibility piece there too. Before we go deeper on that, you mentioned clinical site trips and investigator meetings. Walk me through one of those. What makes them complex?
[02:34] David: So a clinical trip might be, a medical director flies to three trial sites in two countries over four days, the schedule shifts constantly because site visits get rescheduled by the hospitals, and these are senior, expensive people whose time is incredibly valuable. If a flight gets cancelled and they're stuck, that's a real problem.
[02:58] Mia: That sounds high stakes. Has that actually happened, someone stuck?
[03:04] David: Yeah. Actually, that's part of why I took this call. Back in March we had our Chief Medical Officer stranded in Frankfurt overnight, flight got cancelled, the TMC's after-hours line just put her on hold for forty minutes and then rebooked her on something that got her in too late. She missed the first half of an investor meeting the next morning.
[03:26] Mia: Oh no. Okay, that's exactly the kind of thing I'd want to dig into. So she missed half the investor meeting. That had to land badly.
[03:35] David: It did. The CEO was not happy. Look, she's fine, it worked out, but it was the kind of thing where everyone went, why are we still doing travel this way.
[03:45] Mia: Totally. And so that incident is sort of the trigger for looking around. Let me make sure I understand the support gap. Your current provider has an after-hours line but it didn't perform when it mattered.
[03:58] David: Right. It exists on paper. In practice, forty minutes on hold at 11pm European time is not support.
[04:06] Mia: Yeah. Duty of care is a real thing for a company sending people to multiple countries. Okay, let me come back to the visibility piece you mentioned, because I think it connects. You said you don't really know what you're spending until the statements come in. Who's asking you for that number?
[04:24] David: Our CFO, Sarah. Constantly. Travel is one of our biggest non-headcount line items and it's been climbing. She wants to know what we're spending, by program, by department, and whether it's in policy. And right now I genuinely cannot give her a clean answer because it's spread across the TMC, direct bookings, and personal cards that get expensed.
[04:50] Mia: That's a tough spot to be in, being asked for a number you can't cleanly produce. Do you have a sense of roughly how big the travel spend is?
[04:59] David: Last year it was about 3.8 million. This year we're tracking well above that, it's up something like 22 percent year over year, which is exactly why Sarah is on me about it. The trials are scaling so travel scales, but she wants to know how much of that increase is necessary versus just leakage.
[05:20] Mia: Up 22 percent, okay. And when you say leakage, what do you mean specifically?
[05:26] David: Out of policy bookings. People booking last minute, booking business class when they shouldn't, not using preferred fares. I'd guess maybe 15 percent of our spend is out of policy but I honestly don't have the data to know for sure.
[05:41] Mia: Right. So you suspect roughly 15 percent leakage but you can't see it clearly enough to act on it. That's helpful. Let me zoom out for a second. You've got the after-hours and duty of care gap, the eight people spending time booking instead of doing their actual jobs, and the visibility and policy piece your CFO is pushing on. Did I capture that right?
[06:03] David: Yeah, that's a good summary. The CFO one is probably the loudest right now just because she's the one asking.
[06:11] Mia: Makes sense. On the eight people, do you have a feel for how much time this is eating?
[06:17] David: Hard to say exactly. Anecdotally, a couple of them have said they spend maybe a day a week on travel coordination when things are busy. Across eight people that adds up, but I've never measured it.
[06:31] Mia: Sure. So potentially a meaningful chunk of eight people's time, though it's not measured today. Okay. Let me ask about the team. These eight EAs and coordinators, are they happy with the current setup, or are they frustrated?
[06:46] David: Frustrated, mostly. They feel like they're doing the TMC's job. And they're the ones who get the angry Slack message when a senior person's trip goes sideways. So there's a morale piece too.
[06:58] Mia: That's real. The people closest to it usually feel it first. Let me shift a little. When you imagine this being solved, what does good look like for you? If we talked again in a year and you were thrilled, what changed?
[07:14] David: Honestly? I'd love to just be able to answer Sarah's questions in about thirty seconds. Pull up a dashboard, here's spend by program, here's policy compliance, here's the trend. And I'd love to never get another 11pm Slack message because someone's stuck somewhere. If those two things were true I'd be thrilled.
[07:34] Mia: That's a clear picture. Reporting you trust and travelers who are looked after. Those are both very much in our wheelhouse, so I want to come back to them. Before I do, tell me about the current provider relationship. Are you locked in, or is there a renewal coming?
[07:52] David: There's a renewal. Our contract with them is up sometime mid-year, I want to say June or July, I'd have to check the exact date. We're not thrilled but switching is a hassle so there's some inertia.
[08:06] Mia: Understood. Switching always feels like a hassle, that's fair. What would have to be true for it to be worth the hassle?
[08:14] David: It would have to clearly fix the support thing and the reporting thing, and it couldn't be a painful transition for the eight people who'd have to learn a new system. If it's just a lateral move, not worth it.
[08:27] Mia: That makes complete sense. So a real improvement on support and reporting, and a transition that doesn't punish your team. Let me tell you a bit about how we work and you can tell me where it lands. So Corporate Traveller is the SME-focused arm of Flight Centre, and the two things we hear about most are exactly what you raised. One, we have a genuine 24 by 7 team, real people, with a target answer time measured in seconds not minutes, because for our clients a stranded traveler is the whole ballgame. Two, all bookings flow through one place, so you get consolidated reporting, spend by whatever cut you want, and policy compliance built in. So the leakage becomes visible and you can actually act on it.
[09:12] David: That reporting piece would be huge for me. Can it really break it down by program? Because that's the cut Sarah always wants and nobody can give her.
[09:21] Mia: Yes, by program, department, cost center, traveler, however you tag it. We'd set that up with you. And the policy rules get enforced at the point of booking, so the out of policy stuff gets flagged or blocked before it happens, not discovered later.
[09:37] David: That's the dream, honestly. The flagging at booking is the part we don't have at all today.
[09:43] Mia: Right, today you find out after the money's spent. We move it to before. Let me ask about the duty of care side. When your CMO was stranded, was there any way for your team to even see where she was and what her options were?
[09:57] David: No. We found out she was stuck because she texted her assistant. There was no system.
[10:04] Mia: Yeah. So we have traveler tracking, your team can see where everyone is, and if there's a disruption our team is already rebooking before the traveler even calls in. For someone sending medical directors across multiple countries, that's usually the thing that matters most.
[10:20] David: That would have completely changed the March situation.
[10:24] Mia: It sounds like it. Let me make sure I understand the decision side of things, because I don't want to waste your time if the timing or the people aren't right. If you did decide this was worth exploring seriously, who else would be part of that conversation?
[10:40] David: So it would be me driving it. Sarah, the CFO, would have to sign off, especially on anything above a certain dollar threshold, and she cares about the spend and the reporting. Procurement would get involved for the actual contract, they like to run a bit of a process. And I'd probably want our Head of Clinical Ops in the room because his teams do the most complex travel and he'd have opinions.
[11:05] Mia: That's helpful. So you're the one driving it, Sarah signs off and cares about spend and reporting, procurement runs the process, and Clinical Ops has a strong point of view on the complex trips. Is that the right read?
[11:18] David: Yeah, that's the cast of characters.
[11:21] Mia: Great. And of those, who do you think would be the hardest to win over?
[11:26] David: Probably procurement, just because they default to running an RFP and comparing on price. And Sarah will want to see the numbers, she's very data driven.
[11:36] Mia: That's good to know. Numbers for Sarah, process for procurement. Okay. I think there's a really strong fit here on the two things you care most about, the support and the reporting. What I'd love to propose as a next step is to get a few of your people in a room, maybe you, and ideally someone from Clinical Ops, and do a proper working session where we show you the platform with your kind of trips, and we map out what a transition would actually look like so it's not scary for your eight coordinators. How does that sound?
[12:08] David: That sounds reasonable. I'd want to get my head around it a bit more before I pull Clinical Ops in, but I'm open to a next session.
[12:16] Mia: Totally fair. Why don't we do this. Let's get a session on the calendar with you, and we can decide together whether to bring others in once you've seen it. I'll send a few times. Does the next couple of weeks work in principle?
[12:30] David: In principle yes. Let me check my calendar and loop in a couple of people internally and come back to you.
[12:37] Mia: Perfect. I'll send a follow up today with a summary of what we discussed and a couple of proposed times. David, this was really helpful, thank you for being so open about where things are.
[12:48] David: No, this was good. You actually listened, which is more than I can say for the last few of these. Talk soon.
[12:55] Mia: Talk soon. Thanks David.

[Note: timestamps compressed for readability; the live call ran the full hour with additional back and forth on traveler profiles, regions, and the current tool's specific failures.]