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Voysey House,
Barley Mow Passage
London W4 4GF
United Kingdom
Telephone: +44 (0)20 8742 3355
USA: 1-800-988-6168
Canada: (647) 382 1644
Australia: 1300 55 95 95
New Zealand: 61-7-3377-0141
Our Team
Team photo, November 2011.
Martin Randall
Chief Executive
Martin was born in 1953. The first half of his gap year was spent labouring at Bedfordshire Brick Works to fund the other half in Florence. He then spent three years at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London University, where he obtained a BA in the History of Art.
After a year working as a stone mason in Germany he entered the Philosophy Department of York University to study aesthetics. The expected career in museum work eluded him and he fell into the travel business by chance. After a harsh apprenticeship of four jobs in three years, he started a travel company specialising in art history tours in 1982. Martin Randall Travel was founded in 1988.
Martin retains a leading role in the planning of the company's tours, festivals and cruises and in the writing and designing of brochures. He has primary responsibility for framing company strategy and shaping policies, practices and service standards, and for building, developing and bonding the team.
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Fiona Urquhart
Operations Director
Fiona joined Martin Randall Travel in 1997 as an Operations Assistant and is now Operations Director and a member of the board. Key aspects of her work include strategic planning, budgeting and staff management. She travels regularly researching new ideas, and maintains a role designing and editing the main brochure and various supplements. Life before MRT consisted of a degree in French and International Relations, an eight-month stint in Paris, another in Trento and a year in Badajoz. In 2010, Fiona married MRT lecturer, Harry Charrington.
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Andrew Hurman
General Manager / Accountant
A science-based education culminated with graduation from Manchester University in 1975 with a degree in Geology. This was followed by a sojourn in the arts world as artist, muralist, gallery director, journalist and author. And then the start of a commercial career path in the travel industry, with the past 10 years as office manager and accountant at Martin Randall Travel.
Imke Valentien
Operations Manager
Born and brought up in a family of art dealers in Stuttgart, Imke moved to the UK in 1988 to study History of Art and History at UCL, followed by an MA at the Courtauld Institute of Art. She worked for 3 years as co-editor of a dictionary of artists before joining Martin Randall Travel in 1998.Imke lives near the office in west London and her children Hannah (born 2001) and Leyla (born 2003) now enjoy occasional trips to the office to ‘tidy mummy’s desk’.
Imke is in charge of all German-speaking countries, some of Eastern Europe and Scandinavia.
Liz Brown
Walking Tours Supervisor/ Press Officer
Liz Brown grew up in rural Wiltshire and her first foray into city life was at Cardiff University, where she studied English Literature and Italian, which included a year studying at the University of Parma. She then moved to London to work for MRT from 2004 until 2007, operating and planning Italian tours, which culminated in her managing the Mozart in the Marches Festival in June 2007. But a long-held desire to be a journalist got the better of her and she returned to studying, and completed a year's Masters in Broadcast Journalism at Staffordshire University in 2008. That resulted in a job back in south Wales working as the news editor for a community radio station.Since August 2008 she has been travelling in central America climbing volcanoes and picking up some Spanish, working as a tour manager in Italy for an Oxford-based walking company, and returned to MRT in December 2010. Her responsibilities now include developing MRT's walking tours and press relations. She's usually found enjoying the park and bars in Battersea, on her bike or heading back to the Wiltshire hills.
Lizzie Howard
Operations Supervisor
Lizzie grew up in Gloucestershire, and took the International Baccalaureate at Malvern College. She spent her gap year in Munich and studying the violin, before reading German and Italian at Bristol University. After a year abroad as a teaching assistant in Hamburg and studying at Verona University, she decided to take a third year out after graduating to train as a chef and to travel around the world.
Lizzie joined MRT in 2008 and supervises tours to Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Northern Italy.
Sarah Pullen
Operations Supervisor
After growing up in Salisbury, Sarah spent her gap year teaching English in a university in Vietnam and travelling for several months in South East Asia. She graduated in 2006 from Cardiff University with a degree in Music, specialising in the clarinet. Sarah is still a keen musician and enjoys orchestral playing whenever possible. Before joining MRT in 2007, she worked in the picture library at Dorling Kindersley and for another cultural tour company.
Sarah supervises tours to the UK, Scandinavia, Russia and North America.
Flora Varcoe
Reservations Supervisor
Flora was born into a musical family and enjoys music and singing as a hobby. She studied English and Art History at York University after which she spent time travelling in Africa. She joined MRT in 1999 to help with the first Venice festival and has since worked in different parts of the office on tours to various parts of Europe and in the reservations department. She is now Reservations Supervisor, in charge of the team which has most interaction with clients. She was also in charge of Music at the Castle for several years, the chamber music weekends in Taunton.
Alexander Witcomb
Operations Supervisor
Alexander worked for Martin Randall Travel for three years from 2006 as Operations Assistant and returned in 2011 as Operations Supervisor for the Italian team. He grew up in West Sussex, and studied at Cardiff University for a BA in Italian and Linguistics, including one year in Pisa. His interests include theatre, cinema and playwriting. He has taken a production to the Edinburgh Festival and has recently completed his first novel. He has tour managed numerous tours for Martin Randall Travel.
Sophie Wright
Operations Supervisor
Sophie grew up in Devon before venturing north to Durham to study French and Spanish. During her year abroad she studied at the University of Alcalá de Henares in Spain, and worked as an English teacher for French professionals in Paris. Sophie also has a passion for music – she sings and plays the piano, clarinet and saxophone, and is a founding member of the Emmartee Ensemble. She has also established herself as the in-house page-turner. She graduated in June 2007 and started work at MRT two weeks later.
Sophie supervises tours to France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Hannah Wrigley
Special Projects
Hannah read English Literature and Italian at Manchester University. She worked as an analyst for a Media Intelligence company before joining MRT in 2002 as an Operations Assistant with responsibility for Italian tours. Two years later she joined her partner, Massimo, in Florence where she worked for a further two years for Abercrombie and Kent. In July 2006 she was enticed back to MRT to head the new cruises project (arguably the world’s most exciting travel job). She continues to be based in Florence, the wonders of modern technology enabling her to work closely with the Chiswick office.
Joanna Murray
Operations & Reservations Executive
Jo grew up in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. She studied music performance at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, specialising in flute, and after completing her degree spent a year as Musician in Residence at a public school in the Oxfordshire countryside. She has worked as part of the Reservations team at MRT since July 2006 and was promoted to Reservations Executive in June 2008. She is also part of the inhouse brochure team and helps organise chamber music weekends at the Castle Hotel in Taunton.
Jo is in charge of the Music Weekends (The Castle Taunton, Jesmond Dene House).
Gary Whyte
Marketing Executive
Gary grew up in Inverness before moving to London in 2004 to study for a BSc degree in Sociology and Criminology at City University. During the summers of 2004 and 2005 Gary was employed at a Children's Camp in the USA, and in the final year of his degree he spent three months learning Spanish at a language school in Seville. Prior to working at Martin Randall Travel, Gary worked in the Marketing Department for a customer experience research agency.
Maddy Anedda
Operations & Reservations Assistant
Maddy is half Sardinian. After growing up in Dorset (with a 4-year stint in Munich) she went to Cardiff University to study German and Italian. On her year abroad she studied in Frankfurt and Venice, before volunteering at a forest kindergarten back in Germany for the summer. After graduating with a first class degree this July, Maddy moved to London and joined the MRT team in September 2010.
Helen Bowden
Operations Assistant
Helen grew up by the sea in rural South West Wales. She graduated from Bristol University in 2009 with a degree in Art History, which included a year spent studying renaissance art and architecture at the British Institute of Florence. She continued to study at Bristol and gained an MA, also in Art History, which included research for an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. After a brief interlude working for a charity, Helen moved to London and joined MRT in October 2011 and operates tours to the Baltic States, Belgium, Sweden and the UK.
Anna Cahill
Operations Assistant
Anna was born and grew up in Exeter. She spent a gap year studying Italian in Florence and working on a farm in Tuscany which led to a love of all things Italian. She studied English Literature and Italian at the University of Manchester and spent a year abroad teaching English in Sardinia. Prior to joining MRT Anna worked for eighteen months as an e-learning Project Coordinator for a language services company. Other previous work experience includes tour guiding in Venice. Anna operates tours in Italy, the UK and the USA.
Caroline Cuss
Reservations Assistant
After studying French and German at Oxford University, Caroline worked for several years as the PA to the editor of the Times Educational Supplement. In 1983 she moved with her husband to Frankfurt, where she acted for a year as the West German correspondent for the TES, and then moved to Heidelberg. She then did a stint at the Springer-Verlag in Heidelberg, copy-editing medical textbooks. After a gap of several years bringing up her two daughters, Caroline took a diploma in translation (German to English) under the aegis of the Institute of Linguists. Her most recent post prior to this one was as a program and travel administrator in classical music artist management for a company based in New York and Los Angeles. In her spare time, she plays the piano, enjoys opera and classical music, and cycling along the Thames.
Hannah Ellis
Operations and Reservations Assistant
Hannah grew up in West Yorkshire and studied German and Spanish at Exeter University, graduating just a month before starting at Martin Randall Travel. She spent her year abroad at the University of León in northern Spain before spending a summer in Vienna. She plays the bassoon in her free time.
Frances Filmer-Sankey
Operations Assistant
Frances was born in Oxford, but spent most of her childhood in West London. She studied French and Italian at Oxford University, where she specialised in 17th century French literature and Modern Italian literature. During her year abroad, she taught English in a secondary school in Padua and lived in Antibes and Paris. After graduating, Frances completed several internships in London and Verona, and joined the MRT team in October 2011. She loves cooking, reading and learning languages and is currently learning German. Frances operates tours in France, Italy, Germany, the Czech Republic and the UK.
Rosie Fox
Operations Assistant
Rosie grew up in Provence and Yorkshire. She studied French and Italian at Oxford University and graduated in 2010. She has studied in Bologna, au-paired in Sicily, twined vines in the Dordogne and taught French in Morocco. Rosie is a keen walker and spent a month walking the Lycian Way in 2009. Her name is engraved in Yorkshire Sculpture Park and she joined the MRT team in August 2010.
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Hubert Giraud
Operations Assistant
Hubert is French, and has been obsessed with churches and other religious buildings from a very early age. After his Baccalaureat, he lived in New York for 6 months to perfect his English before moving to London. He first visited India in 1996, and was instantly fascinated by the wealth of cultures and traditions, as well as the architectural heritage of the country. He has returned many times since, having spent over a year there. In 2007, this fascination for India led him to study the Art and Archaeology of South Asia at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, UCL). He joined MRT in May 2011, working on the forthcoming India tours.
Edward Lewis
Operations Assistant
Edward was born in Brunei and spent much of his childhood in the Far East before attending school in Scotland. He possesses a BA (Hons) in Archaeology and Sociology and an MA in Egyptology from the University of Liverpool. Edward has spent the previous 6 years in Egypt working at the Library of Alexandria as a Research Specialist and as a Project Manager for cultural activities funded by the European Commission. He has travelled extensively in the region and is particularly keen on Middle Eastern cuisine.
Emily Mason
Operations & E-commerce Assistant
Emily grew up in West Yorkshire and studied French and Hispanic Studies at the University of Birmingham. Following her graduation in 2007 she went on to do her Masters in Applied Translation Studies at Leeds University, specialising in Spanish and Portuguese. After her studies she worked for a year in Valencia in a recruitment role and as an English teacher. She then spent three months in Brazil improving her spoken Portuguese. Emily has also studied Italian and spent much time in the north of Italy.
Emily operates tours in Spain, France, Italy and Portugal.
Samantha King
Operations Assistant
Samantha grew up in London and has attended a performing arts school since she was three years old. She passed her President's Award exams in a variety of dance styles by the age of 15 and has performed in musicals, fashion shows and charity galas throughout the UK and Europe. Samantha studied German and Spanish at the University of Manchester and spent her year abroad studying at a language school in Salamanca and working as a teaching assistant at a secondary school in Gersheim.
Samantha operates tours in Germany, Spain, Belgium, Greece and Hungary.
Izabela Palega
Accounts Assistant
Originally from Poland, Izabela has been living in London since 2007. She graduated, shortly before coming to the UK, from AF Modrzewski University in Cracow where she did her BA in International Relations and MA in International Trade. Izabela is currently studying towards her AAT Accounting Qualification and works in the accounts department at Martin Randall Travel.
Bridget Swithinbank
PA to Martin Randall
Bridget has been Martin Randall’s Personal Assistant since 2005, and has a range of additional responsibilities within the company. Bridget is from Devon and has worked in a variety of fields, including publishing, radio, dance and the Design Museum. Her husband is pianist for English National Ballet, they live in Chiswick and have two daughters at university, studying Music and English.
Lucy Wright
Operations Assistant
After growing up in Devon, Lucy went to Durham University to study French and Spanish and also took up Italian. On her year abroad she waitressed in a hotel in Frascati, studied translation in Rome, produced English language learning material for a software editor in Paris, and worked as a scary clown in a maze in Mallorca. After graduating with a first class degree in 2009 Lucy moved to London working as a project manager for a foreign language voice-over agency and joined the MRT team in January 2010.
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