Nikki Archer-Waring: Joint Founder & Managing Director
Nikki is the tri-national (Australian, Canadian and British) Managing Director and is the driving inspiration behind Spirit of Remembrance. As Managing Director of Spirit of Remembrance Nikki draws on over 25 years of executive management experience in Travel & Tourism in operational, HR, and Sales & Marketing sectors in traditional offline and online in the UK, Canada and Australia. Being tri-national she also has a totally unique perspective with Remembrance being able to identify with - and work within all three of her mother countries armed forces history of conflict and sacrifice.

Nikki co-founded Australasia's first online incoming travel business (Travel Online) in 1995, winning extensive governmental and private sector recognition and several prestigious awards. In 2001 Nikki moved to the UK from Australia and held a number of senior appointments with Sabre Holdings (parent company of Travelocity, Last Minute, Holiday Autos etc); London City Airport; and  Head of the Travel Collection, a fully owned division of Kuoni Travel Group. Throughout her career Nikki was responsible for development and operation of large group tours, (up to 3,000 people), which included medical conferences and incentives for well known companies such as Cadbury, Toyota, Xerox to name but a few. Nikki has also served on several high profile industry boards as well as extensive industry consulting experience.


Nikki also has extensive hands-on experience at senior management level in the UK with all facets of tour operations, including her tenure as Head of Travel at The Royal British Legion where she increased brand awareness and significantly grew the tailor made tour department.
 Nikki hails from a  distinguished tri-service military family and recognises the significant debt we all owe to all those who served and continue to serve. She is especially proud of her grandfather, Arthur Critchley-Salmonson who won a DSO in the Dardanelles, while her great uncle was one of the first pilots in the AFC. Nikki is an avid family historian who has been researching her family for the past 20 years and has discovered that her family's military service can be traced back to Brigadier General Richard Waring, who worked his way through the ranks beginning his illustrious career in 1690.  Nikki is also a Member of the 
Guild of Battlefield Guides
  

Graeme Archer: Joint Founder & Director of Marketing
Graeme is our Australian Director of Marketing with an unbroken 30 years executive/board level career within the travel, tourism, leisure & hotel/hospitality industry sector. Graeme is ex Australian Army (NS) and is also a Vietnam Veteran. He hails from Euroa, a small country town in Victoria, Australia that holds the . Graeme has extensive experience in both traditional & online travel and tourism sales and marketing distribution platforms both in Australia and the UK and is also highly experienced within the online and internet travel sector with an extensive 20 year online travel & tourism background since going online in 1995.
 Graeme is a highly literate travel professional with extensive experience in both major corporate cultures and entrepreneurial start-ups - particularly in the online travel and leisure field with early stage start-ups. For the record, he is a both a proud Aussie and a fanatical Aussie Rules (Collingwood!) supporter. 

Graeme is the full time Marketing Director for Spirit of Remembrance. He is also an award winning photographer  with his work being featured by major travel companies, Tourism Bureaux and UK print and digital media. He also acts as a specialist senior travel & tourism consultant for the prestigious Gerson Lehrman Consulting Group.

Graeme as a National Serviceman followed in his brothers footsteps who saw service in Vietnam with RA Signals in the Australian Regular Army as a senior NCO. Graeme was conscripted and as a very young National Serviceman also served in South Vietnam (also in RA Signals (110 Sig Squadron) ) in Saigon, Nui Dat and Vung Tau. His passion and hobby (besides photography) is WW2 allied fighter aircraft - especially his second love - the beautiful Spitfire and its lesser loved - (but hugely appreciated) cousin the amazing 'Hurri' (Hurricane). He also is a huge fan of the WW2 Avro Lancaster and Bomber Command and can often be found at the RAF museum at Hendon in London gazing longingly at 'S for Sugar', the famous Australian crewed Lancaster from WW2.  

Colonel Christopher Newbould CBE: Group Tours Manager & Chief Guide:  
Christopher is an integral part of Spirit of Remembrance. In 1997 Christopher established the "Remember Them!” Battlefield Tour programme which focused on the main battlefronts of both World Wars.  Since then and until 2011, Christopher was responsible for an excellent series of battlefield tours for Poppy Travel, The
 Royal British Legion. 
As a senior member of our team Christopher is responsible for bringing a highly experienced and knowledgeable team of guides together and will work with them to create group and personal tours. 

He is also our Chief Battlefield Guide.Each member of the guide team has been carefully selected by Christopher for their knowledge, commitment and storytelling ability. Under his guidance each guide has reconnoitered and researched their specialist itineraries with the object of bringing the past to life for you. He delights in designing tours that will appeal to a broad range of interests, particularly those following family history queries.Colonel Christopher Newbould is a Guiding Member of the Guild of Battlefield Guides, badge number 09

Dr Matthew Leonard B.A (Hons), M.A. PhD, modern conflict archaeologist consultant & lecturer 

Matthew is a modern conflict archaeologist studying warfare during the Twentieth and Twenty-first century. His work explores both the human experience of conflict and the subterranean worlds of the Western Front during the First World War. He has conducted extensive archaeological and anthropological research in France and Belgium and has both a Masters degree and a PhD in the subject. Matthew is a member of the Durand Group and advises the BBC on its cross-platform coverage on the

 centenary of the First World War. He is also a major contributor to Oxford University’s online project, World War One Centenary: Continuations and Beginnings.  He is a published author of Poppyganda - the story of how the modern relationships between man and nature, war and politics, the media and technology are writing another chapter in the story of this most notorious of flowers.

As a conflict archaeologist, Matthew’s research adopts a modern interdisciplinary approach, incorporating elements of anthropology, military history and archaeology. He is using this framework to explore how the subterranean landscapes of the Western Front, which themselves are a distinctive kind of conflict landscape with their own repertoire of material culture of the Great War, were created and experienced, and how existentialism, sensorial interaction and the human body coped with and mediated the extreme pressures of war life underground. He is widely published both academically and commercially and more information concerning Matthew's research can be found on his website www.modernconflictarchaeology.com.

Chris Shaw: Living History / Re-enactment advisor
Chris grew up in Kent and has always been passionate about history and bringing it to life.  He is extremely knowledgeable about re-enactment and has dedicated the past 8 years to The Shorncliffe Trust creating a heritage and education park in Folkstone. The site is the most important military camp in Britain over the last 200 years and has a unique history, that includes being the birth place of the modern British Army in 1803 and being the gateway to the trenches during the Great War 1914-1918.

Heritage tourism is changing in the 21^st century and Spirit of Remembrance is leading this in partnership with our charity the Shorncliffe Trust. Our vision is to create a more immersive experience for the heritage tourist as well as creating an ethical approach to the countries we visit by supporting the local communities that are the guardians of all our stories through history.