Adventure Operations Manager London, England
Job description
Who are Flash Pack?
Flash Pack creates boutique group adventures for solo travellers aged 30-49.
We launched in 2014 to disrupt outdated clichés associated with group tours and empower a new generation of bold, energetic solo travellers in their 30s and 40s. This untapped demographic had not only been underserved by the travel industry, but misunderstood.
We quickly transformed into a high-growth, mid-stage start-up connecting Flashpackers in over 15 global markets. Customers who travelled with us LOVED it – and we grew really fast as a result. Then Covid hit the travel industry. The last 18 months have been a journey but we’re back with the support of fantastic venture capitalists, and have massive plans for global expansion in 2023 and beyond.
Now, our mission is to create one million friendships through the power of group adventure. To reignite human connection and bring like-minded solo travellers in their 30s and 40s back together, on luxurious, authentic adventures, packed with hard-to-do-by-yourself experiences, that create lasting friendships. In fact, 80% of Flashpackers already stay in touch. And over 60% now come from outside the UK, bringing with it the potential for sustainable but rapid growth.
International demand for solo travel is starting to boom once again – and Flash Pack is here to lead the charge of a growing global movement. To fulfill this mission, we’re expanding our team with some of the best talent around. That’s where you come in…
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Who we’re looking for*
We're looking for an enthusiastic and experienced Adventure Operations Manager to join our Adventure Operations team. You will split your time between the line management of 2-3 staff within the Adventure Operations team and the day-to-day management of a small portfolio of key DMC accounts (our local partners). Your team will work in partnership with our trusted DMCs on the operational delivery, commercial performance and quality of our Adventures (our tours).
Flash Pack is in an exciting growth phase so we are continuously launching new Adventures in new destinations. Your team will be responsible for a range of Adventures around the globe so you don’t need to hold specialist regional knowledge. Strong people management skills, a meticulous eye for detail and a natural ability to build strong supplier partnerships will be key factors in your success in this role.
This is a Remote Flexible role meaning that while it is contracted to the London office there is flexibility to work from home the majority of the time. You will ideally be based in the UK, but we're open to applications from those based in countries within +/- 2 hours GMT (business hours). The whole company currently meets in the London office once every six weeks for an off-site collaboration day and your team may meet a little more regularly for team working and ad hoc events such as interview days, onboarding and training.
What you’ll be doing:
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People management - this will account for at least 50% of your time. You will be line managing a team of 2-3 staff who each look after a portfolio of Adventures and DMCs. To support your team, you don’t need to hold specialist destination knowledge but you do need to have strong managerial skills so as to influence your team to deliver our Adventures to our expected standards and also learn and progress in their roles.
- Project management - you will spend around 25% of your time leading projects focused on improving the systems and processes that the Adventure Operations team engage with on a daily basis. There will also be the opportunity to contribute to other interdepartmental projects.
- Key DMC account management - you will spend around 25% of your time directly managing a small portfolio of Adventures and DMCs. You will be the DMC’s primary point of contact and ensure the smooth running of all departures.
- Onboarding and building partnerships with new DMCs - this occurs after new Adventures have been designed by our Adventure Innovation team. You’ll need to build strong partnerships with our DMCs, a key part of this will be ensuring they understand how to use our systems.
- Lead role in Adventure capacity management - setting dates and allocations with DMCs.
- Lead role in interdepartmental yield management working group.
- Conducting thorough pre-departure operational checks - ensuring our Pack Leaders (tour leaders) have been trained, our Adventures comply with our minimum health and safety standards, and our on tour incident management procedures are followed.
- Continual quality improvements to your team’s portfolio of Adventures - you will review your team’s Adventure product performance and influence them to identify and action necessary improvements based on customer feedback and your own knowledge.
- Close collaboration with all internal teams, in particular with our Customer Experience, Sales and Marketing teams.
Your responsibilities will regularly change and develop as the business grows, and it is important that you are comfortable getting involved in tasks outside your remit in order to help the business meet our key objectives.
About you:
We’re after the right person and as such you don’t have to tick all these boxes, as we know some people are less likely to apply for the role unless they are 100% qualified.
- People management - You are an experienced line manager who’s passionate about coaching and training team members.
- Operations and supplier account management - You have a proven track record as an Operations Manager. You hold specialist knowledge of supplier account management, and know how to collaborate with suppliers to ensure they deliver products that meet customer expectations. As a line manager, you also know how to train and develop your team to meet these same standards.
- Roll with it - You have experience in a startup or scale up environment and understand that they are unpredictable environments. You’re flexible, comfortable with a degree of chaos and can handle challenging and changing situations.
- Proactive learner - you have an interest in both travel and technology, and are willing to do what it takes to become an expert in Flash Pack adventures.
- High attention to detail - You are thorough and focused, usually picking up errors others have failed to notice.
- Excellent communicator - You can communicate confidently and authoritatively with a wide variety of stakeholders.
- Decision maker - You are a self-starter who can make decisions and confidently manage your own workload with minimal supervision.
- Organised and able to work under pressure - You are comfortable working in a fast-paced environment, and can juggle multiple tasks at the same time.
- Be confident in your creative ideas and have the communication skills to present them.
- Be nice - You get that the team is more important than yourself.
Apply if you don’t quite tick all of the boxes but can hit the majority.
The nice-to-haves:
- Well-travelled
- A background in group travel
Sound good? Then join our mission to create one million friendships through group adventure – and a friendly and energetic global team on the cusp of worldwide expansion.
Hours: This role is Monday to Friday but you should be happy working some evenings and weekends if required
Salary: The salary range for this role is between £41,200 - £45,900 depending on experience. We also offer stock options after your first year with the company.
Location: We call our way of working ‘remote-flexible’. You can work from anywhere in the UK (or +/-2 hrs GMT business hours) as long as you are happy to come to London every 4-6 weeks or so. If you enjoy more regular face to face interaction, living close to London would be advantageous.
Our culture: We revolve around high performance, high conviction and humility. We value teamwork over grandiosity, great questions over corporate euphemisms and autonomy over conformity. We care deeply about surrounding ourselves with ambitious, exceptional but humble people and believe that our culture is our greatest advantage against our competitors as well as thriving as the industry changes.
What’s in it for you?
- You’ll get 25 days annual leave, excluding bank holidays plus an extra day off on your birthday. That’s 34 days in total
- A remote-first office. We don’t care where you work from (in the UK) as long as you hit your targets.
- The opportunity to travel and experience a Flash Pack trip.
- A diverse and inclusive team, with people from all walks of life. 33% of the team identify as BAME
- Quarterly company-wide socials in London, and regular spontaneous work events.
- Stock options that mean something.
- We have a flexible office space in Central London where you can float in and out to brainstorm, catch-up, have 1-2-1s and socialise. We will meet up as a whole company once every six weeks.
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Diversity & Inclusion_*
We’re led by a BAME, female CEO and building a diverse and inclusive team is incredibly important to us. As we rebuild Flash Pack post-pandemic we’ll be focused on promoting self-education through our anti-racism and anti-sexism reading list and building diversity and inclusion into the company hiring, performance and progression framework. If you would like to talk to us about these efforts, or have suggestions for how we can do better, we would love to hear from you.
Flash Pack is proud to be an equal opportunities employer: At Flash Pack we embrace diversity and see it as a key competitive advantage. There is always more we can do but that's why we're committed to hiring top talent regardless of race, religion, colour, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age or status as an individual with a disability.
We’re a growing team and happy to make any accommodations we can for individual needs. If you have an additional accessibility or other requirement we haven’t considered, we will do our best to adapt and make sure your needs are met.
Flash Pack GDPR Compliance: Please take two minutes to read our Flash Pack Privacy Notice for Recruitment and learn how we will process your data.
Job Type: Full-time
Salary: £41,200.00-£45,900.00 per year
