JOB DESCRIPTION FOR: VP Data & Insights

Our Company

Established in 1996 in Amsterdam, Booking.com has grown from a small Dutch start-up to one of the largest e-commerce companies in the world. Booking.com is the largest business within Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG) and accounts for the vast majority of Booking Holdings’ total revenue. Booking Holdings is a leading Fortune 500 e-commerce conglomerate with a market cap of approximately $115 billion.

With a mission to make it easier for everyone to experience the world, Booking.com invests in digital technology that helps take the friction out of travel. Booking.com connects travellers with the world’s largest selection of incredible places to stay, including everything from apartments, vacation homes, and family-run B&Bs to 5-star luxury resorts and even tree houses. The Booking.com website and mobile apps are available in over 43 languages and offer more than 29.5 million listings, including over 6.6 million homes, apartments, and other unique places to stay. So whether travelling for business or leisure, customers can instantly book their ideal accommodation quickly and easily, without booking fees and backed up by its promise to price match. Via the customer experience team, customers can reach Booking.com 24/7 for assistance and support in over 43 languages, any time of the day or night.

At Booking.com, we are all involved in making hundreds of decisions every day. The decisions we make are a reflection of our Values - they reflect what is important to us, both as individuals and as an organisation.

When we use our Values to make decisions, we make a deliberate choice to focus on what is important. When Values are made explicit, they provide clarity on what “good” looks like. And when they are shared, they build unity in a group. They build culture.

Think customer first. We obsess about adding value for our customers - guests, partners, colleagues - to make it easier for everyone to experience the world.

Own it. We deliver on our promises, make informed decisions and prioritise to get the important things done today.

Learn forever. We are resilient, take time to reflect, and seek to learn – from colleagues, from the outside world and from our failures.

Succeed together. We celebrate team success, through making connections, building trust and valuing the diverse perspectives of others.

Do the right thing. We get the right results the right way. For each other, our communities and the world around us.

Background

As Booking.com envisions a future in which it will serve customers a one-stop solution for all travel-related needs, we are working towards offering a fully ‘Connected Trip’, in which every aspect of the travel experience can be planned and booked through us. To accelerate the further development of our Connected Trip strategy, we have formed a new Horizontal Business Unit, Marketplace, that focuses on the end-to-end customer experience.

Led by the SVP Marketplace, who reports to the Chief Business Officer of Booking.com and is on the Booking.com Leadership Team, the Marketplace Business Unit is responsible for the overarching traveller experience on our platform, including traveller-facing journeys that are common across verticals, as well as our customer loyalty program, and company-wide Experimentation capabilities.

Booking.com's Marketplace Department turns travel goals into travel realities. Our purpose? To create frictionless experiences at each and every stage of the trip. From browsing to booking and beyond, our focus is on building the connected experiences which make journeys smoother, faster and more enjoyable. Think of us as travel matchmakers, ensuring seamless integration across our product verticals to effortlessly and intuitively connect traveler preferences and actions.

The Marketplace mission is to truly understand traveller needs and behaviour across multiple verticals, design and implement common traveller-facing product experiences, steward travellers to the right vertical offering, and grow Connected Trips, where travellers not only book hotels or homes, but also flights, car rentals, rides, and local attractions with us. The long-term mission of Marketplace is to grow traveller loyalty through delivering phenomenal product experience, by evolving our customer loyalty program, and by ensuring Booking.com supports our travellers in the right way throughout their trip. Marketplace Business Unit runs the common parts of our website and app, as well as is responsible for key Booking.com-wide capabilities, such as the User Experience, Experimentation Platform, Measurement, and operational Predictive ML models.

Profile VP Data & Insights

Imagine revolutionising the travel experience with Data Science and Analytics capabilities, being a key contributor to accelerating our Connected Trip strategy. As VP Data & Insights, you will advance Booking.com Data, Measurement, Experimentation, and Decision Sciences capabilities, and partner with the senior leaders across the organisation to deliver customer value through innovative Data Science & AI techniques.

As a key member of the Marketplace Leadership Team, you will lead the Marketplace Data Science, Analytics, Experimentation, Data Management, and ML and Data Products areas, and provide critical insights and build models to enhance our Marketplace traveller-facing products. You will act as a key Decision Science and Insights Business Partner towards the SVP of Marketplace and her LT. Collaborating closely with Product and Technology leaders, you will also be a key Data and Insights Partner to Central Tech (our CTO organisation), Marketing, Finance, and Vertical BUs, collaborating with them on optimising the end-to-end traveller experience.

You will be defining and implementing shared success metrics used for steering the growth of the Connected Trip across Booking.com. You will drive data-driven innovation and product development, through ownership of the Experimentation Platform and by ensuring excellence in the Experimentation Quality and Causal Inference. You will be applying Data Science & Analytics techniques within your teams to make key business decisions, develop products, and lead pioneering research initiatives. You will collaborate closely with the Data Platform Engineering, Data Governance, and Machine Learning teams within our Central Tech to leverage enterprise data governance, orchestration, infrastructure & ML models for robust data analysis & solution engineering delivery.

This role offers a chance to make a significant impact on our company and the travel tech industry. If you're ready to lead with innovation and shape the future of travel, this is the role for you!

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Leadership:

• Team leadership of ~250 FTEs, collaborating with senior leaders across Product, Tech, Finance, Marketing and other BUs to deliver insights, business growth, and customer value.
• You will set a long-term strategy for Data, Insights, Experimentation, and Decision Sciences capabilities as part of customer-centric product development and the overarching Booking.com Connected Trip Strategy.
• You will represent Booking.com Data and Insights internally and externally, driving visibility, education, and collaboration amongst fields.
• Data Science and Analytics craft leadership across Booking.com, ensuring that professionals in this job community are set up for success in their skill development, career paths, and by promoting cross-functional collaboration.
• You will contribute to building a strong Marketplace leadership team and aligning senior leaders across Booking.com on Data Insights and on delivering measurable customer outcomes.
• You will collaborate closely with Central Tech, who are responsible for Central Data and ML Platforms, to set common Tech standards, align on the overall data strategy and priorities, and deliver cross-functional projects using core Data and ML platform capabilities.

Strategy and Requirements:

• Develop and implement the customer data insights roadmap to empower Connected Trip strategy and customer loyalty program.
• Stay abreast of traveller needs and the opportunities for innovative ways to address them, by applying emerging technologies like Gen AI, sophisticated techniques like synthetic data modelling, and cross-functional collaboration projects that holistically improve the customer journey.
• Ensure consistent traveller data collection and measurement across Booking.com, and steward effective and compliant data management across Marketplace and other BUs.
• Collaborate with Central Tech on Data, ML, and data-related infrastructure and tools development and tech standards.

Business Insights:

• Drive effective decision-making through relevant data insights, effective operating model, and strong eye for business across the Data and Insights teams.
• Partner with senior leaders to drive measurable customer value by demonstrating data insights and recommendations.
• Equip Product teams with data insights for web and app performance, and a clear link between our product levers and measurable customer outcomes.
• Partner with Product and Tech leaders to embed data-driven decision-making in product development.

Data Capabilities:

• Maintain and further develop the Experimentation Tool to enable data-driven innovation and customer-insights driven development.
• Develop Data Products to enhance traveller success on the Booking.com platform, supporting personalisation, offers, and loyalty offering.
• Maintain and develop Machine Learning products that enable core functionalities of Marketplace traveller-facing and platform products.
• Develop new data capabilities in line with industry standard methodologies and emerging technologies.

Innovation and Standards:

• Prototype and evaluate new product ideas, focusing on advances in Gen AI, Machine Learning, and sophisticated data modelling techniques.
• Lead Measurement, Instrumentation, User Consent Management, and Metrics Reporting.
• Set common standards and success metrics across Marketplace and the broader organisation, ensuring team alignment and empowering collaboration and prioritisation across teams and tracks.
• Lead Data Science, ML, Analytics, and Experimentation roles, aligning with Central ML Platforms.
• Modernise analytics, lead the company-wide Experimentation platform, and supervise professional development for the Data Science and Analytics job community.

DESIRED OUTCOMES:

• Increase high-quality traffic to verticals from shared product surfaces (homepage, cross-sell, promotions) to boost bookings.
• Deliver shared capabilities that enhance connected trips and unify user experiences (price bundling, user segmentation), improving decision-making and product development.
• Support company loyalty by expanding our customer loyalty program and enhancing the connected trip experience, driving metrics like app engagement and repeat business.

IDEAL EXPERIENCE & SKILLS

Data Science and Analytics Leadership:

• Validated experience in leading Data Science and Analytics teams through organisational change in a large-scale data environment. Strong executive business partnering skills.
• Ability to mentor and develop senior Data Science, ML, and Data leaders on their technical skills, strategic insights, and business partnering with diverse peers across the organisation.
• Strong eye for business, as evidenced by using insights to identify and drive growth levers in the context of an international online consumer business (ideally, a marketplace business)
• Experience with shaping, implementing, and evolving company-wide measurement and instrumentation approach for online consumer behaviour data with a high degree of granularity and in line with regulatory guardrails.

People Leadership, Business Partnering and Cross-functional Team Management/collaboration:

• Building and leading cross-functional teams of data professionals at scale. Developing technical and stakeholder management abilities, and ensuring effective and engaged teams operating in both central and federated settings.
• Delivering measurable customer impact and sustaining quality standards and shared methodologies for data management, analyses, and insights.
• Operating as an equal business partner to Business, Product, and Technology counterparts, co-creating solutions for customer problems and building on each others’ strengths.
• Collaborating with Central Infrastructure and Platform Tech to ensure seamless integration of data governance policies, infrastructure data platform & delivery technology requirements.

Collaboration and Customer Impact:

• Consistent track record in collaboration and delivering customer impact.
• Strong collaboration skills with Product, Marketing, Finance, and Technology teams.
• Success in using data and insights to improve customer engagement and experience.

Expertise in Decision Sciences and Measurement:

• Proficiency in Measurement, Causal Inference, and Decision Sciences.
• Using diverse types of customer data and insights for hypothesis-driven Product Development.

CRITICAL LEADERSHIP CAPABILITIES

Acting Strategically

• Develop a clear strategic vision for the Data & Insights craft, aligned with the overall company strategy.
• Provides clear direction for the organisation, leading to actionable changes across multiple operations or functions.
• Engages in scenario planning that incorporates new information or innovative thinking to gain significant advantage or impact.
• Resourcefully navigates diverse interests and perspectives to facilitate collaboration and alignment, ultimately contributing to the achievement of our overarching company goal: the Connected Trip.

Getting Results

• Responds resourcefully, flexibly, and positively when faced with new challenges and demands. Optimally deals with complexities of various situations. Moves forward productively under conditions of change or uncertainty.
• Demonstrates and champions a sense of urgency, a “can-do” spirit, a sense of optimism, ownership, and a strong commitment to achieving goals and organisational success.
• Demonstrates a strong sense of ownership and a commitment to achieving meaningful results.
• Facilitates alignment on critical decisions related to the Connected Trip strategy by involving relevant collaborators, gathering input, and building consensus.
• Reviews performance and progress on a regular basis to ensure teams are achieving results.
• Tests to see if goals are sufficiently bold and implement corrective actions when things get off track.
• Sees the opportunities and translates them into actionable steps, whether it is for business growth, improving customer experience, or increasing employee productivity and engagement.

Establishing relationships, Collaborating and Influencing

• Effective collaborator and influencer, forming relationships at both the team and executive levels
• Takes time to identify and engage with collaborators, seeking consensus and/or understanding
• Finds opportunities to build and enhance relationships that help others achieve their objectives, reaching out proactively.
• Promotes collaboration and partnership among multiple parties inside the organisation
• Orchestrates events for key players and collaborators to engage in dialogue and shape consensus, plays a leading and visible role in those events
• Champions a culture where people feel valued and respected and leverages even difficult or tense circumstances to enhance relationships.
• Possesses strong conflict resolution skills to navigate and resolve disagreements and disputes among team members, departments, or collaborators, fostering an atmosphere of collaboration.
• Shows strength in negotiation techniques to bring parties with varying interests to a mutually beneficial agreement, ultimately contributing to the success of the Connected Trip initiative.

OTHER PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS

Impeccable Integrity

Embodies and practises premier ethical standards. Creates an environment of trust by acting with fairness and consistency, keeping commitments and providing rationale for decisions.

Open Mind

A resilient and committed executive with a flexible, collaborative and open operating style; non-political and non-bureaucratic; someone with a natural and effective consultative approach who will gain the trust and respect of individuals at all levels.

Excellent Communication Skills

Maintains an open flow of two-way communication, exhibiting strong verbal, written and presentation skills, stating expectations clearly and being visible to all collaborators. A person with strong intellectual capabilities who can hold their own yet support the ultimate decision. A creative problem solver who is willing to acknowledge the past and build forward.

Ego Maturity

A highly motivated, credible and mature operating executive, with high confidence in their superior professional skills and ability to drive decisions. A balanced leader with an appropriate blend of modesty, calm demeanour and professional will to win.