About Segments
Segments is part of the Accommodations Business Unit and is responsible for delivering many critical company priorities. The teams within Segments are responsible for defining and driving product and business strategies specific to key growth areas (such as non-hotel accommodation types) and fast growing high-value customer segments (such as Families, Chains or Long-stays).
About the role
This role is part of the program management team within Segments’. The Program Manager plays a vital role in our ability to execute against our growth strategy and deliver against key milestones. Segments focuses on providing best in class experience on Booking.com for alternative accommodations (such as homes & apartments) and growth segments such as Families and Long Stays. You will provide the necessary connections, planning and delivery to help us get there faster and with greater impact.
How will you achieve this?
The Program Manager’s most valuable contribution is to ensure a proactive, collaborative and functional relationship is established and maintained between the various teams/departments/leadership teams internally within Segments and externally (e.g. between Product, Tech, Strategy Copy/UX, Research, Legal, GTM etc).
This means:
- The Program Manager is responsible for the governance and E2E program management of several streams of work (or portfolio’s) within the department.
- The Program Manager ensures that the team's roadmaps/plans focus on agreed business priorities, dependencies and strategies, and they deliver against the shared objectives and main activities with agreed upon key milestones.
- The Program Manager drives the scoping of the project and eventually supports the teams with the Business case creation.
- The Program Manager identifies key requirements needed from cross - functional teams, other business units and potential external vendors.
- The Program Manager supports the teams in identifying and managing the relevant dependencies in order to minimize the risks and the challenges.
All in all, we’re looking for someone who is structured, proactive, solves issues instead of reporting them and excels with all types of stakeholder management. This role requires the ability to flourish in ambiguity, to be a good team player and contributor and to have a drive to keep learning and developing in an ever changing environment. A passion for travel is always a plus!
Key Responsibilities
Responsible with limited to no supervision to define scope, kick-off, manage and execute every phase of complex department programs, specifically:
- Drive vision for initiative/program towards clear business objectives, scope, requirements & success criteria
- Create clear planning documents and roadmaps together with involved teams, including setup and maintenance of dependency management
- Establish a solid governance routine which involves (senior) management updates and reporting. Holds stakeholders and business partners accountable for next steps and objectives and proactively identifies risks and issues
- Enables teams & leaders to make informed decisions and supports prioritization exercises
- Establish a productive working relationship between our department and other departments / functions to deliver against our strategy.
- Strategic and business thinking is required to improve the quality of all programs and initiatives.
- Set up and run cadence for regular business performance review (e.g., MBR, QBR) at department level, supporting the creation of reports for the leadership team.
- Lead by example through sharing best practice behaviors on project management methodology.
Knowledge & Skills
- Highly organized, pragmatic and results-focused
- Proactive, sense of responsibility and ability to work independently
- Strong communication and interpersonal skills, focused on collaboration.
- Proven track record to independently lead high complexity (end-2-end) projects, drive multiple medium complexity projects and/or manage program portfolio of projects.
- Strong stakeholder management, building and maintaining relationships and connections with diverse teams, across the organization and outside.
- Ability to influence and steer leadership, senior management and groups.
- Ability to break up a complex problem into actionable and easy to understand solutions.
- Solid business understanding, independently use quantitative and qualitative data to drive decision making.
- Able to function well within ambiguity and in a constantly changing environment.
- Basic understanding of technical project management or working with product/technical teams
- Preferably having a background in Agile Project management, PMI certification, Prince2 and/or LEAN.
- Experience in the Travel industry and/or Product Mgt, Product Mkt Mgt, Operations roles is a plus.
- Fluent English speaker
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 open position at Booking.com.
