Director Home & New Growth

About the role

The Director Home & New Growth is a member of the Commercial Growth & Operations (CoGO) Leadership Team within Booking.com’s Accommodations business unit, reporting to the VP Commercial Growth and Operations. 

The Director Home & New Growth leads and drives growth for Booking.com’s Home business (single-threaded owner for that segment), steers and executes dedicated growth plans in strategic geographies, and leads a number of strategic commercial growth initiatives; supported by a team that also owns business analytics and competitive insights. 

The role works mostly through influence: it builds data-based cases, secures commitments across Product, Channels and regions, and ensures the right topics are worked on and results are delivered in line with the company’s ambitions and the Accommodations business unit strategy.

Tasks & Responsibilities

General

The Director Home & New Growth leads and steers the Home segment globally, steers and executes growth plans in strategic geographies, and leads a number of strategic growth initiatives. The role works through influence across Product, Technology, Marketing, Operations, Connectivity and the regions, and holds a team that spans all of these areas.

• Defines and drives the strategy for the Home business, with the objective to accelerate growth for that segment on Booking.com, globally and in key geographies, as measured by transactional, supply and overall market segment footprint growth.
• Structures and drives operational and strategic initiatives by gathering and synthesizing relevant data, leading analyses with the support of the FP&A team and presenting recommendations that drive short- and long-term growth.
• Advises the VP and the CoGO Leadership Team on performance against business goals, and contributes to setting annual and quarterly strategy, objectives and KPIs.
• Works with Product, Channels, regions  and other operational teams on the launch of new products, commercial initiatives and campaigns, and coaches teams on new ways of working to achieve a sustained shift in behavior.
• Leads the preparation of strategic reviews presented to the Booking.com Leadership Team and the Booking Holdings Board of Directors, with the support of the Strategy team for part of the articulation.
• Acts as point of contact for risk, compliance and finance topics that touch the scope, including fraud, in coordination with the relevant teams.
• Represents Home & New Growth internally (e.g. in department and leadership meetings) and externally (e.g. in meetings with accommodation partners and at conferences) on behalf of the VP.
• Leads and develops the Home & New Growth team: sets clear priorities and focus, invests in people's development and well-being, and keeps the team connected through change.

Home segment leadership

The role is the single-threaded owner (STO) for Home: it sets the direction and makes the decisions for the segment, and oversees and drives the execution the initiatives that deliver growth. Most delivery sits with other teams (except for some key strategic growth initiatives for the segment), so the role leads through priorities, targets and commitments.

• Leads the Home strategy and steers its execution: decides priorities, sets targets and tracks progress against them in quarterly reviews.
• Owns supply growth, covering acquisition and retention, including supply incentives.
• Owns supply performance and sub-segment focus (for example semi-pros and professional/MPP  partners), and identifies what gets in the way of partner performance.
• Steers performance and demand generation for Home together with Marketing and the regions.
• Drives progress of the Home Partner value proposition, working closely with Product (Marketing) and channels to develop key elements of the proposition and bring them to market
• Secures commitments from Product, Marketing, Connectivity and the regions, and escalates early when commitments are at risk.

Strategic geographies

• The role steers and enables growth in strategic geographies, such as India, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Brazil, and others as priorities change. The Revenue Management team in CoGO sets the geo priorities together with the Accommodations leadership team. The Managing Directors and regions then define in collaboration with the Home & New Growth team the relevant localised growth plans. This role provides the growth engine behind the plans.
• Builds tailored growth plans for strategic geos with the regions and the strategy team, with specific investments and activities.
• Co-creates those plans with the Managing Directors and regional leaders, and steers and enables their execution.
• Develops and applies a Geo Growth playbook and the learnings from strategic initiatives to geo plans.
• Ensures geo plans, budgets and priorities line up by coordinating with Revenue Management, ABU Strategy, FP&A and other initiative owners so that 

New Growth: key strategic growth initiatives

The role leads a number of strategic growth initiatives that build new commercial levers for Booking.com’s Accommodation business, acting as an incubator for future scaled activities and levers. Each starts from an idea, is tested and proven, and is either scaled in-house or handed to the team that will scale it. 

• Acts as STO for partner incentives, building the case, the operating model and a virtual team across Revenue Management, Connectivity, Marketing and the regions.
• Leads a small number of further strategic initiatives and explorations, agreed with the VP and the CoGO Leadership Team.
• Takes initiatives from zero to one: defines the hypothesis, runs pilots with Product and partner teams, and agrees what success looks like before scaling.
• Hands proven initiatives to the owning team once they are ready to scale, with a clear owner, resourcing and targets.
• Works with Strategy, Business Analytics  and Data Science to design experiments and read the results.

Data: business analytics & competitive insights

The role directs a team of Business Analysts that support the Home & New Growth team, as well as the Chains and Connectivity tracks initiatives, ensuring  that decisions and targets rest on facts.

• Leads business analytics and competitive insights, including market share and the drivers of partner and supply performance.
• Directs segment-specific and channel-specific analyses that identify where accelerated growth can come from.
• Builds the fact base for planning, target setting and quarterly business reviews, with FP&A and Data Science.
• Turns analyses into clear recommendations and a consistent narrative for the VP and the leadership team.

Required knowledge and skills

• Minimum of 7-10 years of experience in a similar senior leadership role with proven track record in commercial strategy, business development, growth or management consulting; for e-commerce, travel, marketplaces or consumer-facing products.
• Excellent analytical and strategic skills: builds fact-based cases and ambitious strategies and plans, models scenarios, and holds up under continuous challenge from senior stakeholders.
• Leads through influence in a highly matrixed and senior stakeholders environment: builds consensus, drives buy-in and finds pragmatic solutions across stakeholders with competing priorities. 
• Experience taking new commercial ideas from first hypothesis to a proven initiative, including experimentation and piloting.
• Experience in supply management or partner acquisition, incentives, pricing or growth levers in a fast-paced marketplace and ecosystem.
• Experience leading managers and specialists, with real attention to their development, well-being and focus.
• Experience leading change, with exceptional cross-functional stakeholder management, communication and interpersonal skills, and ability to inspire with vision. 
• Strong executive presence: distills complex business issues into concise, persuasive insights and recommendations, and works with people at all levels, from Board members to entry level employees. 
• Ability to learn fast, take ownership of key topics and work independently with sound judgment.
• Fluent in English, with excellent written and verbal communication skills.

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.