Travel Manager – Americas

The Travel Manager will be responsible for Travel operations and vendor management within the Americas (primarily US and Canada) and globally coordinating the WTW Meetings Management program. The role will have travel ownership of the Americas region, supporting the regional business from a geographical and segment perspective.

Oversee the successful delivery of travel services to the Americas, with responsibility for managing the travel agency (Amex GBT) relationship and collaborating with their management team to continually grow our strategic partnership. Build a best-in-class travel program using innovative technology to enhance colleague experience, while maintaining value for the organization.

Drive stakeholder engagement, socialization of travel metrics and KPI's, be accountable for your regional budget and focus on cost saving initiatives whilst also ensuring an elevated level of colleague satisfaction across WTW.

In addition, the role involves pro-active partnering with HR, Mobility, Legal, Security, Tax, Marketing, and other internal teams on initiatives such as our ESG strategy, net-zero carbon commitments or compliance to ever-changing regulatory requirements.

Note: Employment-based non-immigrant visa sponsorship and/or assistance is not offered for this specific job opportunity.

The Role

• Work closely with the regional travel manager and category manager to socialize ongoing category initiatives.
• Pro-active engagement with senior leaders, business managers, travel arrangers and travelers throughout the region.
• Engagement with a variety of stakeholders for travel category planning in a commercial-focused manner using reporting and change management buy-in.
• Support the development of a travel category strategy for travel and strategic meetings and events & vision including commercial & ESG deliverables.
• Execute and manage a strategy plan covering all elements of regional travel management (define, analyze, execute, and manage).
• Monitor travel policy compliance and provide strategies to increase compliance, drive cost savings and efficiencies whilst focusing on agile and innovative practices.
• Work closely with the travel management company to ensure operational issues are resolved, SLAs are met, management reporting systems are accurate and adherence to policy is monitored.
• Identify savings opportunities and service enhancements, initiate process improvements, and deployment of benchmarking-generated best practices.
• Analyze, monitor and report on travel expenditures and compliance.
• Provide monthly and quarterly reports for corporate travel. Work with Risk Management on Duty of Care issues, and other incidents relating to business travel.
• Support the US Travel Operations Manager to design and implement travel training / seminars for travelers and travel arrangers.
• Ensure compliance to regulatory requirements (GDPR / data privacy) is maintained, including supporting breach management with Info Sec.
• Engage with other internal corporate functions i.e., Security, Insurance, Mobility, Facilities to socialize program enhancements and initiatives.

Qualifications

The Requirements

Essential Qualifications

• Global travel procurement and operations experience.
• Global card program experience.
• Global meetings experience.
• Proven record of year-on-year delivery.
• Change management and self-awareness skills to adopt targeted approaches to a dynamic set of stakeholders.
• Good analytical skills.
• Excellent communication, collaboration and listening skills.
• Demonstrable commercial expertise and negotiation skills.

Technical Skills

• Strong knowledge of global corporate travel industry with experience in managing travel agency across all regions.
• Proven experience of delivering corporate card programs; individual, purchasing, supplier and meeting card across all regions.
• Proven experience in driving and managing a meetings program in a matrix environment.
• Experienced in partnering with Mobility, Tax, & external suppliers to manage visa / tax changes per country
• Experience in expense management and expense.
• Proven track record of implementing successful projects; delivering reporting tools and insight capabilities in a large global organisation.
• Drive and enforce compliance to the travel and expense policy.
• Ability to effectively communicate performance metrics to senior management.
• Strong change and communications skills.