Less than a year into his new role, Thomas Cook Group general counsel Craig Stoehr talks to Alex Newman about the travel company’s financial rescue, the three things that make a great lawyer and Icelandic ash clouds

Thomas Cook Group’s chief executive, Harriet Green, has a succinct way of explaining the company’s recent history, according to general counsel Craig Stoehr. “I have heard her say several times that the company was a cancer patient, underwent treatment and remission, and is currently transitioning to the ‘cured’ stage,” he says, reflecting on the travel operator’s remarkable turnaround.