Key Relationships

• Reports to: SVP, Trips
• Direct reports: 6-7
• Key Peer relationships: MDs for Trips Verticals, VP Engineering & Data, Strategy & Operations leaders in other Business Units

Scope & Responsibilities

Strategy Development & Execution

• Own the Trips BU multi-year strategy, ensuring it is supporting the overall Booking.com Vision and Strategy, is commercially grounded, competitively informed, and operationally deliverable.
• Turn strategy into operational plans (e.g. 3-year plans, annual plans, country/segment strategies) with aligned objectives, KPIs and resource envelopes in partnership with Finance, Product/Tech and Operations. As part of that lead the annual and operational planning cycle for Trips, translating strategy into prioritised initiatives, resource allocation decisions, and OKRs.
• Work with FP&A to ensure this is tightly linked and aligned with the budgetary cycle and financial goals set.
• Own the Trips response to Company Priority planning processes — ensuring the BU's interests, dependencies, and capacity constraints are clearly articulated and resolved.
• Conduct ongoing horizon scanning: consumer trends, competitive dynamics, market intelligence and trends, regulatory shifts, and technology disruption across Flights, Ground Transport, Attractions, and Insurance.
• Lead strategic deep-dives on key topics as needed (e.g., supply strategy, commercial model evolution, loyalty integration, new market entry).

Strategic Projects

• Lead multiple critical, often ambiguous strategic projects end-to-end where needed, from problem framing and hypothesis design through analysis, synthesis and recommendation.
• Lead or support growth assessments — business case development development, due diligence coordination where inorganic.
• Own strategic topics that span multiple Trips verticals (e.g., Genius/loyalty, NRM application to Trips) as well as strategic vertical topics.
• Manage relationship with Booking Holdings Corporate Development on Trips-relevant opportunities.

Business Operations & Performance Management

• Turn strategic intent into concrete portfolios, roadmaps and annual/quarterly plans with clear priorities, trade-offs and success measures.
• Ensure robust business cases, economics and scenario analysis underpin material decisions (investments, de-prioritizations, restructures, major programs).
• Establish and maintain the BU operating rhythm: LT cadence, steercos, QBRs, and cross-functional governance forums. Ensure that governance within verticals is efficient and ladders up to Trips-wide and company-wide forums.
• Ensure KPIs, risks and dependencies are visible; work with FP&A and Data Analytics to set targets, track performance, identify variances early, enable timely course-correction rather than after-the-fact reporting to ensure Trips delivers against it’s goals and objectives.
• Ensure clear accountability and delivery tracking across verticals and shared priorities.
• Own the Trips input to company-wide planning processes (budget, headcount, priority programmes).
• Drive operational improvements: Simplify decision-making, reduce coordination overhead, improve execution velocity and ensure clear processes, documentation, tooling and engagement models.
• Identify and drive adoption of technology, automation for operational efficiency to reduce manual processes and accelerate decision-making across the BU.
• Evaluate resource allocation, efficiency and ROI on an ongoing basis to help drive improvements and required changes in prioritisation or decision making.

Programme Oversight & Dependency Management

• Oversee the Trips PMO function, ensuring major programmes are well-governed, on-track, and escalated appropriately.
• Manage cross-BU dependencies (Accommodations, Marketplace, FinTech, CS, Marketing) - ensuring Trips is not blocked by, or blocking, shared capability delivery.
• Represent Trips in company-wide programme governance (SBOPC, QPC).

Stakeholder & Partner Management

• Serve as primary strategic thought partner to the SVP Trips on all aspects of the BU.
• Build trusted relationships with MDs, VPs, and Strategy & Ops peers across Booking.com. Serve as strategic thought partner of the Trips Leadership Team to support them in implementation of company processes in their respective verticals. Advise and support the Trips Leadership Team in achieving Trips goals.
• Support the SVP in preparing for ELT, Board, and CBO LT forums.
• Where required, represent Trips in internal and external discussions.
• Work closely with the Internal Communications team to develop and execute internal communication plans to keep teams and stakeholders updated on business performance, programme status and progress, risks and opportunities.
• Act as a central point of contact for cross-functional partners, streamlining processes and improving the quality and speed of decision-making.

Leadership, Team & Organization

• Direct reports include a mix of Strategy & Operations Managers, Project & Programme managers. Lead and manage a small but high-calibre team ensuring appropriate talent development across the different verticals and areas of responsibility. Build a healthy, inclusive team culture with clear expectations, psychological safety and high standards for both delivery and behaviors.
• Lead through transformation with clarity on “why”, “what” and “how” for teams and stakeholders. Ensure an efficient and effective organizational setup through regular reviews, appropriate evolution, and change management. Collaborate with Trips vertical Managing Directors to optimize resource allocation and overall team effectiveness.
• Create an exciting, dynamic, and forward-thinking working environment that engages, retains, and nurtures talent.
• Represent and steward the Strategy, Business Operations & Program job family group. Act as a visible ambassador for the Strategy, Business Operations & Program job family group, demonstrating the value of strategy, business operations, program and change management to stakeholders and peers.
• Contribute to the evolution of the Strategy & Operations job family group across Booking.com: shape roles, span of control and ways of working to balance job family depth with BU-specific expertise; share best practices, help define standards and templates, mentor across BUs, and actively participate in SBOPC communities of practice.
• Role-model connected, enterprise-level thinking rather than purely local optimization. As part of the role, be a strategic partner to the SVP.
• Note regular travel between London, Amsterdam, and Manchester is expected with the Amsterdam office being a key hub for cross-BU collaboration.

Expected behaviors

• Customer- and partner-centric: Ground decisions impact travelers, partners and internal customers; make trade-offs explicit when commercial and customer outcomes are in tension.
• Strategic and systems thinking: Connect dots across markets, products, functions and time horizons; avoid narrow optimization. Anticipate second- and third-order effects of decisions and design for long-term resilience, not just short-term wins. Optimize