David O’Kelly
Chief Executive at SANDEMANs NEW Europe Tours
Dave is Chief Executive at SANDEMANs NEW Europe. SANDEMANs now spans 20 cities and connects over 600, local, independent tour guides with over 2 million travelers every year.
A modern-languages graduate from Manchester UK, Dave moved to Berlin 12 years ago and immediately caught the tour-guiding bug. He fell in love with the company’s Free Tour model that offers a barrier-free opportunity for guests to get the best out of their visit to a city.
One year into guiding Free Tours of Berlin, with no other relevant qualification other than he spoke German, he was asked by Chris Sandeman to open the company’s operation in Munich and went onto serve as COO of SANDEMANs from 2007- 2013. After a brief sabbatical to complete an Executive MBA, he returned as Chief Executive – a position he has held since early 2014.