Signature Travel Network recently promoted longtime executive Karryn Christopher to president. Christopher, most recently executive vice president of marketing and preferred partnerships, will share leadership with Alex Sharpe, who previously held both titles of president and CEO. Senior editor Jamie Biesiada spoke with Christopher about her new role and Signature's soon-to-come AI tool.
Karryn Christopher
Q: You'll share dual leadership responsibilities with Sharpe. What does that look like?
A: The way we work together won't change that much. We're not doing any reporting-line changes immediately. We're just going to take a little bit of time to decide how we want to realign some of the departments and then [decide whether we] will promote from within or if we're going to be able to attract talent from outside.
In terms of Alex's role, he's still CEO. He will still be the strategic leadership and direction that he's always been for the organization. And in the role of president, I'll just have an opportunity to work even more closely with some of the departments that in the past I've interacted with very closely. We're a collaborative culture, but it'll just give me a little more responsibility for each team.
Q: What's your message to advisors?
A: For our members, for our partners, it's always business as usual. That goes back to the simplicity of our mission: We are here to serve our members. We serve our partners and we serve our co-workers by always making sure that we're focused on serving our members and making sure that they have the services and the tools and the resources that they need to be more productive, more profitable and more efficient.
Q: What are your plans and goals?
A: The integration of our technology platforms is key. At the beginning of August we had our annual board retreat, and part of that meeting was discussing some of the continued investments that we need to make in our overall technology programs, our data strategy. It's getting more complicated, but ripe with more opportunity the more that we can align all of our partners' new technology and their integrations.
Q: You've just introduced an AI tool, Signature Storybook, launching early next year. What does it entail?
A: It's a frontline advisor tool. It will aid in the consultative process that advisors are currently doing, but it will eventually also take the place of the search that we have within [proprietary intranet] SigNet. That is our members' and the advisors' go-to resource for all of our preferred products.
Q: What does that look like from the client's perspective?
A: It's a storybook. It's as if you are getting a digital invitation to what is a story of what your journey would look like, being able to customize it based on what their preferences are -- so in real time, being able to modify it.
What I get most excited about is, yes, you might start with a cruise. But what our advisors are doing every single day is pairing it with other types of experiences, making sure it's the ultimate cruise with the ultimate shore excursions. But then also, the pre- and the post- and the hotel where you're going to start your journey and where you're going to end your journey. It's that seamless experience that you will enjoy when you're traveling.
Everything is linked and clickable so that you can actually see how your customer is receiving the information, where they're focusing their time, where they're most excited, what is of highest importance to them, and then you can craft even more experiences around that.