Global Travel Manager

The Global Travel Manager will focus their efforts on creating and educating travelers on our global travel policies, implementing travel technologies such as Concur, corporate cards, travel management companies and delivering a seamless travel experience for employees worldwide. The ideal candidate will bring deep industry expertise, strong leadership capabilities, and a proven track record of driving cost-effective, traveler-centric solutions.

This highly visible role reports to the V.P. Treasurer and supports travel for all levels of the organization with their travel and vendor management, implementation and negotiation expertise. This role will interact with senior executive leaders, sales, operations and the global finance teams to implement new systems and processes to drive efficiencies and cost savings across the organization.

Key Responsibilities:

• Create, implement, and maintain the global travel policy, which is aligned with company goals and local regulations. Monitor compliance and recommend improvements to enhance efficiency and cost optimization strategies.
• Lead the global implementation and optimization of Concur and a global travel management company and ensure consistent service delivery across the organization.
• Negotiate and manage relationships with travel agencies, airlines, hotels, car rental companies, and other vendors. Evaluate supplier performance and ensure service level agreements are met.
• Work with leadership to develop and track KPIs for travel management and supplier performance and cost optimization and develop a supplier scorecard.
• Leverage data analytics to track travel spend, identify trends, optimize processes and cost savings and provide regular reports and insights to leadership on travel spend, savings, and ROI.
• Oversee travel management company (bookings, approvals, and issue resolution) and ensure 24/7 support for travelers, manage emergency response protocols and duty of care obligations.
• Establish trusted collaborative relationships with cross-functional partners, including HR, Legal, IT, and Finance.
• Continuously benchmark and refine policies and procedures to align with business needs, best practices, industry regulations, standards and trends.
• Manage, coordinate and support the integration and onboarding of additional business units into Concur, corporate cards and travel management company, special projects, analysis and ad-hoc tasks as needed.

Successful Candidate will have the following:

• Bachelor's degree in business administration, hospitality or related discipline with 10 years of related professional experience in a complex multinational environment
• Proven experience implementing Concur, managing global travel management companies and strong knowledge of travel technologies, and GDS systems
• In depth understanding of global travel and expense best practices, leading technologies, travel saving levers and negotiation techniques and tactics

• Strong analytical mindset and advanced knowledge of travel booking, expense reimbursement, and leading corporate card practices, a deep understanding of developing key metrics and dashboards, and effective communication skills to present information in an informative way to assist in making decisions

• Demonstrated ability to work effectively in a global environment and capable of gaining commitment and coordinated action on projects or initiatives across time zones and cultures
• Builds effective working relationships across the company, at both the subsidiary and corporate level
• Excellent analytical skills and meticulous attention to detail, with the ability to evaluate issues from local, regional and corporate perspectives
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, along with excellent presentation skills and can communicate concepts and strategies to business leaders and finance employees
• Ability to manage several tasks in fast paced environment and ability to work independently and proactively is critical for success