Air Category Manager

Our purpose at FESTIVE ROAD is simple; to create better travel and meetings management. Our client’s purpose is one of bold ambition; to transform its program into an industry leading premiere travel and events solution, which will redefine business travel standards and expectations. If that sounds like something you’d like to be a part of, read on!

We are an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Please note, there is a requirement for you to upload a cover letter to apply for this role. You will need to tell us in under 250 words why you are a great candidate. You will need to combine your cover letter and your resume into 1 file before uploading. Without this, we cannot consider your application.

Are you excited to join a global team that is focused on developing best-in-class travel programs for their employees? This is a unique opportunity to support our client, Amazon’s Global Category Management Team to drive a best-in-class air program.

Nothing about this role is average. We need a driven air category manager with a can-do attitude, who can get things across the line from idea to design to completion with minimal oversight. So, if this sounds exciting, let’s talk!

You will have a strong understanding of airline supplier management, business strategies and goals, and understand how category management contributes to these. You will participate in the design and creation of strategic plans, roadmaps, budget and resource planning.

You will use key data, reports and performance metrics to contribute to strategic plans, whitepapers and business reviews to inform and influence decision making and get leadership buy in. As a Category Manager, you will highlight customer service issues and provide recommended resolutions.

You will use your natural analytical and category management skills to assess the performance of existing contracts, and you will contribute relevant data to support global airline projects.

You will support sourcing events from researching the market and building out requirements through implementation. You will support cost and savings analysis to drive data-based decision making. You will model alternative options and build out decision-making criteria including cost estimates and supplier recommendations.

A natural business partner, you will develop and maintain strong relationships with preferred airlines and internal stakeholders across Procurement, Legal and Finance to share and leverage best practices and to drive innovation.

You will work with the wider travel team to support the roll out of new technologies, monitor adoption, and track areas for improvement..

Key Skills Required

• Global Airline Supplier Management: Extensive knowledge of the airline industry from a corporate business travel perspective including an understanding of how legal contracts are structured.
• Build and maintain strong partnerships across global supplier base, leverage best practices and drive innovation.
• Drive strong supplier relationships through a formal governance structure at multiple levels, ensuring effective business planning, innovation roadmaps and contract performance (SLAs / KPIs).
• A strong affinity for data and analytics – and knowledge of how to apply this in a procurement environment. Reporting and tracking productivity and adoption metrics for global travel projects. Strong understanding of how multiple data sources can drive and support key decision making. Experience of procurement-driven sourcing events and how data and analysis contribute throughout the end-to-end process.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills – ability to write and present compelling business cases to influence and persuade.
• Business Partnering – a natural inclination and the required gravitas for business partnering – an understanding of how this can be mutually beneficial and an ability to lead through influence.
• Continuous Improvement & Optimization – identify value creation projects that enhance the employee experience. Share and leverage best practices and drive innovation via supplier partnership and broader market research. A passion for continuous improvement, keeping up to date with airline industry trends and developments, which could benefit the program. Ability to work in a cross-functional team and to spot synergies and feedback opportunities.

Experience Required

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience.
• A good understanding of the different working parts of a global corporate travel team, along with the dependencies and downstream impacts of initiatives on different parts of the team.
• 5+ years’ experience in the business travel industry managing airline suppliers.
• A strong understanding of airline corporate contracting and the legal processes involved.
• A strong understanding of airline data & analytics, airline savings and associated industry acronyms.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, including experience in strategic business discussions that require the ability to form a strong point of view.
• Innovative, hands-on, results-oriented, great use of process improvements and ability to meet tight deadlines.
• Experience working with corporate travel management companies, online booking tools, travel and meeting supply base, and other travel technologies.
• Proficient with Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), and project management tools.

Job Requirements

• Ability to travel up to 15%.
• Work location: Dallas, Seattle, Arlington, Atlanta, Chicago, Boston.
• Requirement: Office based 5 days/week

Don’t meet every single requirement? Here at FESTIVE ROAD, we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.