Director, Partner Relations - Hotels

Strategy & Relationships

• Maintains and grows relationships with hotel suppliers and partners.
• Proactively identifies, pitches and secures new hotel suppliers; conducts onboarding.
• Cultivates chain/brand & property-level relationships that drive preferred program participation, special offers, enhanced commission and marketing leads.
• Develops and rolls-out new hotel supplier programs, communicating supplier value, opportunities and ROI offered by Ensemble.
• Collaborates with hotel suppliers on innovative programs, such as agent incentives and promotions; tracks, analyzes and reports outcomes.
• Partners with events to plan and produce hotel supplier events.
• Align with Member Relations to ensure adoption of preferred hotel partner programs.

Business Management

• Develops and implements soft dollar monetization strategies and tactics.
• Owns hotel supplier business reviews, including ongoing tracking and monitoring of key programs, course correction and overall delivery of hotel supplier value and profit targets.
• Sells marketing and advertising packages; partners with marketing to meet sales targets and ensures results for Ensemble hotel suppliers; leads hotel supplier post-mortems and marketing reviews.
• Pitches hotel suppliers on programs that drive increased revenue for the company, including effectively communicating Ensemble’s successful track-record and vision for growth.
• Negotiates hotel supplier agreements and partnerships, meeting revenue and profit improvement targets.

Communications

• Audits current hotel supplier communications and develops go-forward strategy in partnership with marketing and advisor services.
• Leverages existing communications channels and develops new ones to increase revenues.
• Oversees effective dissemination of hotel supplier product knowledge to our travel advisor network; works with advisor services to build awareness and share information through existing and new channels, like events, social media and proprietary technology.

Industry Leadership

• Maintains an in-depth knowledge of the hotel industries market conditions and competitive set; understands competitors’ strengths/weaknesses and takes actions to innovate and be best-in-class.
• Attends events as an Ensemble representative.

Qualifications

• Minimum 5 years' experience in procurement or travel managing hotel supplier relationships with budget accountability of $2M .
• Proven track-record building best-in-class programs that have grown revenues or improved profits.
• Demonstrated experience successfully pitching new concepts and programs to diverse audiences at multiple levels; must have the ability to take a “yes” from a successful pitch and systematically build relationships, inspire confidence and deliver on promises.
• Polished and professional demeanor with experience as a company representative in high-profile and public environments.
• Product knowledge management experience, including synthesizing, organizing and disseminating supplier information to audiences across broad geographical territories.
• Ability to convert relationship capital into revenue and profits for the company.
• Expert relationship manager with experience building and protecting brands.
• Experience from the hotel industry is a must.
• Experience in the luxury space an asset.

Professional Characteristics

• A builder who is entrepreneurial and creative with proven ability to go beyond traditional approaches.
• Has a roll-up your sleeves approach with the flexibility to move quickly and navigate across teams and levels both internally and externally.
• Excellent communication skills; demonstrated ability to persuasively communicate at multiple levels.
• Exceptional listening skills with the ability to take constructive feedback and make positive change for stakeholders.
• Analytical and facts-driven.
• Collaborative and confident with sound judgment; has a straightforward style and can quickly generate trust with stakeholders.
• Unquestionable integrity, high energy and a sense of urgency; embraces change.
• A results-driven and forward-looking perspective; holds self and others accountable.