Business Leader

Loveholidays CEO: From Covid to £350m revenue and the road to IPO

July 14, 2026·43 min
Episode Description from the Publisher

Donat Rétif joined Loveholidays in December 2019 — just three months before Covid shut down global travel. In this episode of the Business Leader Podcast, the CEO of the UK's largest online travel agent for package holidays talks to Sir Richard Harpin about how he not only survived that crisis but used it to triple the size of the business, build one of Britain's most impressive tech-driven growth stories, and put Loveholidays on course for an IPO. Also, what it's really like to run a private equity-backed business — and he advises CEOs to never deviate from your North Star.Subscribe to the Business Leader Podcast and sign up to our free weekly newsletter at businessleader.co.uk/newsletters. Business Leader is a membership community for ambitious CEOs and founders of mid-sized UK companies, designed to help them grow with purpose through strategic support, peer-to-peer learning, expert coaching, and high-impact events. Sign up for our Business Leader newsletter here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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