Janice Sousa named travel startup Groupdesk’s CEO

Janice Sousa

Toronto-based Groupdesk, a B2B SaaS company focused on group travel, has announced that Janice Sousa will join the company as co-founder and CEO to expand the company’s client portfolio.

“Group travel will be fully digitized over the next 10 years and Janice will make Groupdesk the leader in that space.”
– Alex Handa

Groupdesk said Sousa brings almost two decades of business growth expertise to her new role. Prior to joining Groupdesk, she served as vice president of business development at Merit Travel, an activator at SheEO, an executive director of trips at Me to We, and the director of sales at EF Educational Tours. The new hire comes as Groupdesk is looking to raise a new round of funding.

“I am very excited to welcome Janice to our team as co-founder and CEO,” said Groupdesk co-founder, Alex Handa. “Groupdesk is building a team to change the way group travel is booked and bringing it online. We are helping hundreds and soon thousands of agents digitize their work.”

Groupdesk aims to digitize the group travel experience into a centralized platform. The platform targets individual group planners, travel companies and suppliers that are looking for software to manage and grow that business, and large tour operators and travel suppliers with large teams. The company’s tiered offerings include trip promotions, bookings, communications, and payments management.

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“We are inventing a new way to book group travel at scale,” Handa said. “Janice is an experienced leader in group travel with a history of scaling teams and implementing software solutions. Group travel will be fully digitized over the next 10 years and Janice will make Groupdesk the leader in that space.”

The platform’s frontend suite offers web applications, group management tools, custom branding and pages, and mechanisms for sharing travel documents and itineraries. The Groupdesk backend aims to give users real-time insights into bookings, automate repetitive business functions like payment processing, and manage multiple brands within a single account.

“I have worked in the group and travel space for some time now, and I’m looking forward to bringing a product that helps teams drive revenue, productivity, and puts the power in our users’ hands and allow partners to focus on scaling their own businesses,” Sousa said.

Image courtesy OnePlanetNetwork

Isabelle Kirkwood

Isabelle Kirkwood

Isabelle is a Vancouver-based writer with 5+ years of experience in communications and journalism and a lifelong passion for telling stories. For over two years, she has reported on all sides of the Canadian startup ecosystem, from landmark venture deals to public policy, telling the stories of the founders putting Canadian tech on the map.

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