Director - Sales Strategy

Description

At United, we strive to provide only the best travel experiences – to our customers and our clients. Our Sales team works closely with travel agencies, United travel departments, corporate clients and more to provide phenomenal customer solutions that lead to fruitful business relationships. And through valued customer feedback, optimized partnerships, and innovative sales strategies, Sales continues to be the largest revenue-generating department at United.

Job Overview and Responsibilities

The Director of Sales Strategy will set direction of United’s B2B commercial dealings, by generating new ideas, carefully prioritizing strategic projects and analyses, and anticipating future needs of the business. The Director will deliver high quality insights, recommendations, and tools, informed by broad travel industry expertise and a bias toward innovating ideas new to the airline space.

The Director will lead 3 Sales Strategy teams (Channel, Corporate, and Strategic Initiatives) and be the primary owner of Sales-led presentations in executive forums. Productive collaboration with other Commercial leaders, along with effective coaching of the sales strategy teams, are critical for this role.

• Set and adjust priorities for the 3 Sales Strategy teams (Corporate, Channel, Initiatives) and ensure successful delivery
• Drive projects and ad-hoc analytics, to generate insights and/or tools to evaluate, design, measure, and deliver on
• B2B commercial programs
• Lead and coordinate executive presentations, including owning material development and modeling a high standard for the quality of materials produced by the team

• Drive rationalization and improvement in strategically-important processes and artifacts necessary to run Sales, including Salesperson Incentive Program design, reporting architecture and master data approach, and select strategic training efforts; often in concert with the India Knowledge Center (IKC), International Sales Resource Groups, Digital Technology, Sales Effectiveness, and others

   

• Coach team members to develop in key areas e.g. unstructured problem solving, business acumen, executive messaging, influence, etc
• Stay abreast of commercial and tech developments, and building relationships, in B2B space

Qualifications

What’s needed to succeed (Minimum Qualifications):

 

• Bachelor’s degree
• Bachelor’s: Economics, Finance, Business, Engineering, Statistics, Natural Sciences, or similar
• 8+ years experience in roles equivalent to “management & administrative” at United
• 5+ years of leading a team
• Strong analytical and unstructured problem-solving skills
• Innovative and creative mindset, open to building new processes and methods
• Ability to coach members of an analytics/strategy team to develop new capabilities within the team
• Excellent business acumen and strategic thinking abilities, especially as it relates to airline revenue and cost drivers
• Ability to make recommendations under uncertainty, with limited or no data
• Ability to efficiently guide development executive-level communication materials (e.g. PPT decks), and to provide high-quality, actionable feedback that advances materials to a standard facilitating productive discussion
• Ability to professionally drive toward consensus among disparate stakeholders with sometimes competing priorities
• Communication skills allowing comfort with necessary engagement with executive leadership and stakeholders at all levels
• Ability to manage leaders of others
• Ability to manage multiple-interrelated priorities in a fast-paced environment
• Must be legally authorized to work in the United States for any employer without sponsorship
• Successful completion of interview required to meet job qualification
• Reliable, punctual attendance is an essential function of the position

 

What will help you propel from the pack (Preferred Qualifications):

 

• Master’s: Business Administration or similar
• Master’s: Business Administration or similar
• 7+ years in management consulting, banking, private equity, and/or business strategy
• 5+ years in airline commercial functions e.g., network planning, revenue management, sales, or loyalty
• Track record of successfully leading complex projects, working with cross-functional teams, and leading other leaders (not only individual contributors)
• Wide range of knowledge and experience in the B2B travel landscape, including in airlines, hotels, rental cars, cruise, tour, and OTA
• Ability to bring in ideas from outside the airline industry, to help United innovate in B2B commercial space
• Proficient understanding of travel content distribution landscape including GDSs, aggregators, OBTs; and commercial aspects of NDC and EDIFACT
• Knowledge of United’s data sources used by Sales and by Commercial groups
• Knowledge of relevant analytical tools e.g. Python, SQL, PowerBI
• Knowledge of statistical analysis techniques
• Demonstrated understanding of the capabilities and limitations of generative AI tools and effectively leverages them to support research, analysis, content creation, and problem-solving. Application of critical thinking to validate AI-generated outputs while adhering to organizational policies for responsible AI use, data privacy, and security