Meet Sheila Thorp

Regional Manager North America, Umbrella Faces

First something about you

Who is Sheila?

Well, personally, I’m someone with a husband and two grown boys—always my children, no matter how old they get. I’ve been in the travel industry for over 30 years. I like to say I started when I was five.

I grew up on a farm in Minnesota, the middle of three girls. Middle children are known as the peacemakers, and that carried into my adult life—I tend to keep the peace, sometimes even when I shouldn’t.

My boys now both work in aviation—one already for a major airline, the other training to be an aviation mechanic. I guess travel is in our blood.

Growing up, I never knew what I wanted to be. I went to university to become a teacher and changed my major about 16 times. Eventually, I discovered travel business as a degree. Looking back, it makes perfect sense: I was the one planning our family road trips with a paper map, figuring out routes and timelines. My parents later said, “We should’ve known!”

I’ve always been a planner—I love calendars and order. It drives my husband crazy.

How did you get into tourism?

After spending too much time at university bouncing between majors, I finally realized travel was what I enjoyed most. I got a travel degree—those programs no longer exist, unfortunately.

At the time, I worked in a flower shop arranging flowers, which is also where I met my husband. He moved from Minnesota to Colorado to finish school and asked me to join him. I thought, “Two years? Sure.” Thirty-five years later, here we are.

Havin grown up on a farm I love gardening—vegetables, not flowers. I live in the suburbs of Denver now, but even with a tiny yard I make space for tomatoes and other vegetables. I’m great with plants outdoors, but please don’t ask me to keep an indoor plant alive!

My first travel job in Colorado was in ski vacations, working as a product manager. I got to visit most ski resorts across North America and Canada—and ski for free! Once the free skiing stopped, it became too expensive to keep up. We still love the mountains, though—today more for snowmobiling than skiing.

You are Regional Manager North America for Umbrella Faces. What does that mean? Do you have any examples of your day-to-day work?

I wear several hats. Implementations are still a big part of my role—I’m the only Umbrella team member in North America. I also handle support when needed because the European support team closes by 9 a.m. my time.

I manage accounts, especially the larger agencies, and join our sales team for presentations, demos, and conferences like GBTA. I’m also a member of TAMS here in North America and visit customers whenever I’m traveling.

Before joining Umbrella, I spent 20 years in corporate travel and was an Umbrella customer myself. There was a real need for someone in this time zone—and now that’s me.

Say a few words about Umbrella Faces.

Why is it so useful for travel agencies?

Umbrella Faces provides a single source of truth for all profile data. That is absolutely vital.

Agencies use multiple systems—GDSs, OBTs, and many additional tools. Without Umbrella, they must maintain mappings and synchronizations in multiple places. That’s complicated, time-consuming, and requires deep GDS knowledge.

With Umbrella Faces, you map data once. The profile lives in one place. Everything else syncs from there.

We serve agencies of all sizes—from 100 profiles to over 4 million. It doesn’t matter how big you are: if you want consistency, automation, and simplicity, Umbrella saves enormous time and effort.

And yes, it’s multi-language capable, which is increasingly necessary.

Where does Umbrella Faces stand in the age of artificial intelligence?

We talk about AI all the time. We’ve used it in brainstorming sessions and for small programming tasks, but we know it can do much, much more.

One of the clearest use cases is parsing data, especially from GDSs. They’re cryptic systems, and if AI can help us read and process that data more efficiently, onboarding becomes much faster for our customers.

We’re also watching how AI-based travel booking tools evolve and considering how Umbrella Faces could interact with them.

Would you like to paint a picture of the future/forecast for Umbrella Faces? Where is the journey heading?

When I joined three years ago, I wondered how many agencies were left that needed Umbrella Faces. It turns out—a lot. The number of agencies and profiles out there is astonishing, and the need keeps growing.

We’ve only scratched the surface in North America, and there’s huge potential in Australia, South America, and Asia.

As for the product itself, we continuously explore new features—reporting, customer-driven enhancements—while staying true to our core mission. We don’t want to be everything to everyone, but we want to be the experts in traveler profiles and profile data.

Security and simplicity remain key.

Finally, do you have any advice for travel agencies?

Be flexible. Be ready for change.

Anyone who has survived in this industry knows it evolves constantly. Agencies must stay open to new technologies, new processes, and new ways travelers want to book.

Umbrella Faces gives agencies the flexibility to switch systems, add systems, and adapt quickly—without the painful profile migrations and re-mapping work.

Change is inevitable. Tools should help you manage it, not make it harder.

Who should we introduce next?

Maybe Helmut—he works across both Umbrella and Midoco and could give a great perspective from both sides.