On April 30, two travel industry families — the Leibmans of FROSCH and the Wilsons of Valerie Wilson Travel (VWT) — joined forces in an acquisition that merged the two in a business alliance of epic proportions.
Both FROSCH and VWT are well-known in the travel world. Valerie Wilson (founder, chairman and CEO of VWT) grew her once-boutique agency into an award-winning luxury travel leader over the course of the last 40 years. FROSCH, meanwhile, has equally deep roots in the industry; its chairman, Richard Leibman, founded the company nearly 50 years ago, and has played an instrumental part in growing it into one of the world’s leading travel management companies.
Throughout Wilson’s 40-year career, she said she recalls crossing paths time and time again with Leibman, forming a “mutual respect and friendship” for him (and Leibman remembers her much the same way).
In addition to their long histories in travel, Leibman and Wilson share other similarities. Perhaps the most obvious is the central role their children play in their businesses. Wilson’s daughters (Jennifer Wilson-Buttigieg and Kimberly Wilson Wetty) are co-presidents of VWT, and Leibman’s children (Lara Leibman and Bryan Leibman) are executive vice president, and president and CEO of FROSCH (respectively). Both agencies also place a heavy emphasis on high-touch, personalized service and share “a deep commitment to family and a passion to leverage our entrepreneurial mindsets,” according to Jennifer Wilson-Buttigieg.
The Leibmans and the Wilsons — along with Marc Kazlauskas, the president of U.S. branch operations and the leisure division of FROSCH — spoke with TravelAge West about the lessons they learned over the years, the art of mixing business with family matters and what’s on the horizon.
(Editor’s Note: This interview transcript has been edited for length and clarity.)
To the second generation: What’s one piece of advice — about business, or about life — that you received from Richard or Valerie that has stuck with you?
Lara Leibman: Dad taught us, from the time we were very young, to always treat everybody with the same degree of respect. That’s served us well throughout our lives. I feel so incredibly fortunate to have had such an amazing mentor and role model in Dad, who has personally taught me the value of relationships. That cuts across the board to every relationship — at the end of the day, that’s what life comes down to. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that everything we learned, value-wise, came from Dad and Val. Today, that’s what’s driving us in what we do. And what they’ve taught us has also enabled us to have the same feelings toward our siblings. That’s another layer that we add to this, and we thank them.
Bryan Leibman: I think family businesses are either heaven or hell. And I’ve learned a few things. One is that there are no egos. Dad made me the boss very early on — a few months into my tenure at FROSCH, in 1999. I had left a medical residency, and I was going to get an MBA. He said, ‘You seem to like this, and you’re going to take this company to great heights. Just look after me and your mom.’ There was no ego around it. You’ll see humility across our whole organization and with everything that we stand for. It’s allowed us to succeed collaboratively. There’s no stepping on toes.
I think family businesses are either heaven or hell. And I’ve learned a few things. One is that there are no egos.
The other lesson I learned early on was about diversification. When Dad was running FROSCH, there were a few different divisions — corporate, leisure, groups and a division that focused on sending South Africans (ex-pats) back there — but even in those days, there were times when one area was strong, and another was weak. And here we are, being led [out of the pandemic] by a leisure recovery. We end up in a place that none of us could have anticipated, but here we are. The fact that we are diversified is what makes us strong. We use the strength of diversity. We learn from different people, we learn from divisions, and we build on that in a collaborative approach.
Richard Leibman and Valerie Wilson
Credit: 2021 FROSCHKimberly Wilson Wetty: First impressions matter. That was drilled into my head at such a young age. You always want to put your best foot forward, no matter what. Another lesson is to live every day to the fullest. I’ve never met a woman [like my mother] who’s more full of life, who will go out dancing, who is the first one up and the last one to go to bed, and who is gracious to everybody. Valerie started the business in 1981, when I was 10 years old. To think about a mom who was starting a company, and for a little girl to see her mom to do that — it was amazing. Valerie is humble. She always said, ‘I never thought I broke barriers.’ But for me, as a kid, [watching her] taught me that there were no barriers. You can go achieve whatever you put your mind to. I learned that there was nothing stopping you but yourself, so just go for it.
Valerie is humble. She always said, ‘I never thought I broke barriers.’ But for me, as a kid, [watching her] taught me that there were no barriers.
Jennifer Wilson-Buttigieg: I loved Bryan’s phrase that family businesses can either be heaven or hell. That is true! With that, I would say, in [our] family business I always knew that Val had my back. We might not have always agreed, but I always knew she had my back. In the 1980s, to have a working mom — and I don’t just mean working, but creating a brand and setting the stage for luxury travel — it was amazing to be part of that landscape.
For me, the most important thing [Valerie taught me] is to be good to my word. I know that even if there’s not a contract, if you look someone in the eye and you shake their hand, you’re building a level of trust. I’ve been very fortunate that Val has been able to teach me that, and I’ve been able to live by that. As we bring these two family businesses together under the FROSCH umbrella, I’m super excited to rebuild consumer confidence with trust. No brand can be just a brand for a commodity or a product; it’s the people. In today’s ‘move-forward post-COVID-19 world,’ trust is going to matter more than anything else.
No brand can be just a brand for a commodity or a product; it’s the people. In today’s ‘move-forward post-COVID-19 world,’ trust is going to matter more than anything else.
Kimberly Wilson Wetty: We are grateful to be in the position to even have a conversation and know what our future company is going to look like together. It’s a gift that never would have happened if Richard and Valerie hadn’t started — and built — FROSCH and Valerie Wilson Travel.
Marc Kazlauskas: I’ve worked for many family companies, and you see these two families do so well because they genuinely like each other. That mutual respect, and the fact there is communication, trust and honesty, stands out. As an outsider, I can see that genuine [fondness for] each other that’s just not there in the rest of the industry, and that resonates with all of us who work with them. You feel part of the family, whether you are an actual part of the family by blood or not.
Parents also learn from their children, of course. Valerie and Richard, what have you learned from your children?
Richard Leibman: Be patient. That’s a big thing, and every time I get irritable, one of them tells me to calm down. But they’ve also just been there for me. They’ve just helped me get through all that I’ve gone through so well, and they just taught me to continue being good, generous and charitable.
Valerie Wilson: Valerie Wilson Travel would not have been this kind of business — or thinking about an acquisition — without Jennifer and Kimberly. I had much smaller dreams, but they had big dreams, and I was able to be a part of their big dreams. From a personal standpoint, there’s no greater pride in a mother than to see her two daughters be leaders in business, leaders in life and leaders in their communities. And there’s the fact that their children, [my grandchildren], have the same values and respect and trust that we all share.
The second generation is well-positioned to lead the companies forward in COVID-19’s recovery. What lies ahead?
Jennifer Wilson-Buttigieg: I think everyone has learned in the past 12-14 months that predictions don’t really matter. My crystal ball has been cloudy for months, and that’s what’s so exciting about this deal. It’s looking forward and seeing what will be, and then building the team and infrastructure, with the technology and innovation, with our core teams to move forward. There will be bumps in the road, but we’ve survived them [before]. And we will do that in the future.
To me, this is a win for family businesses. It’s a win for the good guys. It’s a win for integrity and trust. This isn’t about doing a deal and going away. It’s not a deal about just acquiring numbers. But wow, what can we do together with our various backgrounds? I’m humbled and really excited.
Kimberly Wilson Wetty: COVID-19 has brought in a level of empathy and compassion because it has challenged all of us. Travel unites us in a way where we can have greater understanding and respect — and hopefully less hate — if we can actually open the borders and start traveling again. That’s where I think the future of travel [is heading].
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