Director of Account Management, Lodging, Africa and Israel at Expedia, Inc

Director of Account Management, Lodging, Africa and Israel

The primary responsibility of the Director of Lodging Account Management is to grow the lodging business in the specified countries through strong industry relationships.
The Director for Africa and Israel, together with a number of Area Managers, leads an account management team of 20-30 people that are responsible for helping many lodging partners (Hotels, Guest Houses, B&Bs etc) to deliver exceptional travel experiences. Our teams develop strong relationships with the industry and lodging partners to help them grow their businesses and improve booking performance on the Expedia Group Marketplace and beyond.
An experienced and proven leader of leaders, the Director will participate as a key member of the Account Management leadership team in EMEA, and will quickly develop a multi-year business strategy, implement and optimize effective process, improve overall team performance, and achieve critical business targets for the region. An expert guide on account management methodologies, the Director is also looked to by internal Expedia teams for knowledge and direction on the Lodging Industry

What You’ll Do

1. Build partnerships with peers, varying departments, and lines of business so that overall Market Management strategies and activities are well planned, communicated, and effectively delivered to reach our strategic and operational objectives
2. Drive strong relationship development with partners to achieve growth in the marketplace
3. Manage and inspire direct reports as well as the broader team in big picture thinking and vision of what market presence can be
4. Work with your leadership team and broader network to expand Expedia’s industry footprint
5. Foster an environment of creative ideas and solutions that can be used with partnerships and in the marketplace
6. Lead the organization by communicating strategy and market insights, cultivating an agile work environment, identifying, and coaching talent, and building an external and internal pipeline
7. Uncover creative opportunities for growth and lead with curiosity
8. Build and communicate clear and focused transformational change and operational plans for Market Management Lodging, including developing OKRs and managing KPIs
9. Challenge the team to provide a world class experience for our travelers and lodging partners
10. Work closely with various stakeholders to drive site traffic conversion, traveler centric thinking, customer engagement, and traffic improvements through destination content
11. Represent Expedia in senior level industry engagement opportunities via conference attendance, speaking engagements, press relationships, etc
12. This role will require at least 50% of travel

Who You Are

1. Desire and hunger to see the travel experience evolve and improve
2. 10 years of sales leadership experience, ideally in the hospitality or travel industry
3. Fluent in English and preferably at least one language of the countries you will lead
4. Past success in mentoring and building organizations that cater to long term supplier relationships
5. Strong technical affinity – ability to pick up and maximize effective usage of systems and analytics
6. Excellent knowledge and understanding of yield management principles and practices
7. Strong focus on “team” with a “get it done” attitude, inclusive leadership style able to motivate & engage a broad variety of individual styles
8. Demonstrated experience in coaching and developing teams, tailoring development plans to each person’s needs & motivations
9. Experience working in a flexible, fast paced ever-changing and challenging environment
10. Experience leading teams across multiple locations
11. Relationship Management: Establishes and builds healthy working relationships with partners
12. Change Management: Developing scalable capabilities and partnering with stakeholders to develop innovative ways to achieve the Market Management goals. Connecting the various programs into a consistent journey for the teams. Providing regular updates for senior leadership, recommending amendments in direction when required and aligning across teams to ensure feedback is incorporated in programs and messages
13. Communication & Influence: Conveys, receives, and interprets ideas and information, presents information appropriately to a diverse range of audiences, and influences partner decisions
14. People Management: Encourages, motivates, and guides individuals and teams in learning and improving effectiveness and develops and improves individual, team, and organizational performance
15. Strategy execution on goals, ideas and initiatives that improve the organization's performance, manage costs, and drive change at all levels
16. Passion for Results: Driving high standards for individual, team, and organizational accomplishment; tenaciously working to meet or exceed challenging goals; deriving satisfaction from goal achievement and continuous improvement