WTTC pays tribute to James Robinson III

WTTC is saddened to hear of the death of one of our Founding Members and the first WTTC Chair, James Robinson III, the former Chairman and CEO of American Express.

“Our thoughts are with his family at this time.

In the late 1980s a group of industry Chairs and CEOs, led by James Robinson, came to the realisation that, although Travel & Tourism was the largest sector in the world and a huge provider of jobs, it was not appreciated globally.

James played a critical role in establishing WTTC as the global voice of the Travel & Tourism’s private sector.”

James D. Robinson III served as Chairman & CEO of the American Express Company for approximately 16 years. He also became a director of The Coca-Cola Company in 1975. He was a general partner and co-founder of RRE Ventures, a private information technology venture investment firm, along with his son, James D. Robinson IV, a venture capitalist, and a classmate of his son from Harvard Business School, Stuart J. Ellman. Robinson was also a president of J.D. Robinson, Inc., a strategic consulting firm. He was previously a long-time Director and Chairman of Bristol-Myers Squibb, and of Violy, Byorum & Partners, which operated in South America.

Robinson also served on the Boards of Directors of PrimeRevenue and was honorary chairman of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Robinson was a member of the Business Council and the Council on Foreign Relations, and an honorary trustee of the Brookings Institution and World Travel & Tourism Council, of which he was a co-founder. In previous years, he served as co-chairman of the Business Roundtable and chairman of the Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations. He was a member of the global senior advisory board at Jefferies Group.

The article WTTC pays tribute to James Robinson III first appeared in TravelDailyNews International.