Vice President Ground Transportation Manchester, England
Job description
Job Summary
The Vice President of Ground Transport is accountable for the overall strategy and business deliverables for Booking’s car rental and airport taxi & rides business. Both of these business units are mature organisations that offer a global product proposition and are playing leading roles in their respective categories. Booking’s ground transport business is playing a key role in the context of the Connected Trip Strategy while the car rental business also operates under a separate consumer facing brand (Rentalcars.com) and offers its services also to B2B demand partners.
This role sits in the Trips Business Unit leadership team and is also part of the Booking Leadership Group.
The incumbent will also become a statutory director of Booking Transport Ltd which is registered in the UK.
Key Responsibilities
In this role you own the strategy and business results for the Ground Transport business unit which includes but is not limited to: overall P&L responsibility for the car rental & airport taxi business (currently 2 separate P&L’s), definition and implementation of the overall business strategy (commercial & product), manage the annual business planning process & quarterly planning cadence and ensure this is all aligned with the overall Booking & Trips Business Unit objectives.
- As a member of the Trips Leadership Team, play an active role in defining the Trips strategy and fostering a high-performing and customer centric department culture.
- Define the commercial trading strategies (revenue management, supply optimisation, conversion improvement ) and ensure that there are robust processes in place to monitor daily trading performance.
- Lead relationships and commercial negotiations with supply partners (incl. large multi-national supply partners) around the world and defining strategies for growing and expanding these partnerships and developing partner propositions with new technologies that will lead to positive customer (traveler) outcomes.
- Follow and understand industry developments and trends in the transportation, mobility and travel space, assess future growth opportunities for the vertical which could include building new products, develop new partnerships or acquisitions.
- Represent Booking.com in respective industry forums and conferences and act as a thought leader in the Ground Transportation space.
- Accountable for the product roadmap of the car & airport taxi/rides business and responsible for ensuring that the technology roadmap is agreed with VP - Trips Engineering and supported by respective product teams that sit in other organisations.
- Work with marketing to have an aligned customer acquisition plan for Ground Transport with clearly defined KPI’s which may include paid marketing ROI, new customers, number of connected trip customers.
- Work with the Trips Horizontal teams and other internal key stakeholders (e.g. Genius) to develop roadmaps to deliver the connected trip product vision which includes system capabilities and commercial propositions (e.g. Value lead discounts, first use incentives, Genius proposition)
- Closely collaborate with finance, legal, tax and risk & control to ensure the business is always fully compliant with the latest laws and regulations.
- The incumbent will be responsible for developing and growing the product & commercial teams in the cars & airport taxi/rides vertical and will ensure that there is a strong Ground Transport culture including all the engineering and corporate functions that support the verticals.
- The car rental team consists of approximately ~800 colleagues (based in Manchester) and the rides team consists of ~150 colleagues (based in Manchester & London). These head counts include engineering resources and corporate functions that are dedicated to the Ground Transport verticals.
Knowledge and Skills
- Substantial General Management capability including defining strategy, P&L responsibility, deal negotiations, driving commercial teams and experienced in product management
- Extensive knowledge of 2 sided online marketplace (advantage when it’s related to travel)
- Strong in developing and driving culture
- Experience in working in an international and very dynamic environment
- Experienced in taking data driven decisions
- Strong negotiations and contracting skills with large multinational partners
- Basic revenue management/optimisation skills would be an advantage
- Ability to define a long-term strategy and break it down into annual and quarterly plans
- Ability to navigate in a complex and sometimes ambiguous environment
- Willingness to get the job done and get involved if required
Pre-Employment Screening:
If your application is successful, your personal data may be used for a pre-employment screening check by a third party as permitted by applicable law. Depending on the vacancy and applicable law, a pre-employment screening may include employment history, education and other information (such as media information) that may be necessary for determining your qualifications and suitability for the position.
