General Manager, Escapia

Introduction To the Team:

Travel Partnerships and Advertising helps partners, including hotels, vacation rentals, airlines, destination marketing organizations (DMOs) and more, deliver excellent traveler and B2B experiences. We drive growth for our partners and the Expedia Group marketplace through competitive supply and our leading advertising and travel media network.

Expedia Group is seeking an experienced, results-oriented General Manager for Escapia to lead and drive growth in our property management software business and lead the business into a new direction. Escapia is a market leading software for professional vacation rental managers. Our tools provide essential technology for highly effective management of business operations, as well as results-oriented distribution and marketing, to drive success for our customers.

Make An Impact!

The General Manager will own the strategic vision, commercial models, technology advancement, go-to-market plans, branding initiatives and global expansion of our Escapia software. By aligning sales, customer service, product, marketing and engineering, the General Manager will need to work with executive leadership teams to gather the proper resources and support to execute the vision and new strategy. The General Manager, Escapia is based at Vrbo’s global headquarters in Austin, TX.

In This Role You Will:

Lead the Escapia Software business strategy & execution towards a new solution with maximization of competitive advantage on both technology and commercial terms; and in support of Expedia’s organization-wide vision and objectives

Create new commercial terms for the business that will drive revenue based on Expedia and Vrbo business initiatives and positioning the software competitively in the market

Ensures alignment between people, processes, goals and strategies to drive precise execution of business objectives, especially in achieving alignment on the new strategy and business model

Determine key business KPIs and report metrics to track the success of current business as well as the new business model moving forward.

Provides leadership and direction to the leaders of the Escapia Software Marketing and Sales teams to meet or exceed acquisition and account management goals; as well as to the leader of the Customer Support team to ensure the highest levels of customer satisfaction, service delivery and new customer onboarding

Builds an inspiring culture by attracting, developing, and retaining talented team members.

Encourages a culture of excellence by setting high standards, providing experienced mentorship, holding people accountable for excellence, and recognizing and rewarding top performance

Works in partnership with the product management and development teams to establish a compelling product vision and roadmap. Assist in holding these teams to jointly agreed upon goals for the new strategic vision as well as product roadmaps items moving forward.

Ensure that the software stays ahead in development by partnering with engineering and product teams to leverage Expedia & Vrbo insights and technology advancements

Serves as an influential leader for the external market, among customers, corporate partners, and the industry as a whole.

Cultivates and drives innovation, as well as effective, efficient execution of processes and programs

Experience and Qualifications:

You demonstrate excellence in the following competencies:

• Establishing Strategic Direction: establishes and commits to both the short-term changes and the long-term business direction based on an analysis of systemic information and consideration of resources, market drivers, and organizational values

• Passion for Results: drives high standards for individual, team, and organizational accomplishments; tenaciously works to meet or exceed challenging goals; derives satisfaction from goal achievement and continuous improvement. Uses data to support accomplishments and results

• Operational Decision-making: secures and compares information from various sources to identify business issues; committing to an action after weighing alternative solutions against important decision criteria

• Driving Execution: translates strategic priorities into operational reality; aligns communication, accountabilities, resource capabilities, internal processes, and ongoing measurement systems to ensure that strategic priorities yield measurable and sustainable results

• Empowerment: shares authority and responsibilities with others to move decision-making and accountability downward through the organization, enables individuals to stretch their capabilities, and accomplish the business unit’s strategic priorities

• Building Organizational Talent: establishes systems and processes to attract, develop, engage, and retain talented individuals; creates a work environment where people can realize their full potential, thus allowing the organization to meet current and future business challenges

• Business Acumen: demonstrates a keen understanding of basic business operations and the organizational levers that drive profitable growth; draws from personal experience to quickly evaluate business plans and processes to identify data or recommendations that need further investigation

• Selling the Vision: vividly communicates to internal and external audiences a compelling view of the future state to help others understand and feel how business outcomes will be different when the vision and values become a reality

Required knowledge & experience:

• Designing and delivering technology-driven business solutions to small and medium-sized software businesses.

• Previous experience in business/organization change management. Migrations, consolidations and integrations, impacting both customers and employees

• Experience managing multiple teams across different locations, including international teams. Current teams reside in Denver, Seattle, Austin and Australia

• Travel on a regular basis to various office locations, including occasional international travel

• Marketing and re-branding during strategic redirection

• Leading and developing teams in a matrix organization; requiring the ability to influence and execute across direct and indirect teams

• Presenting in front of large audiences, including internal stakeholder meetings as well as external conference and market events

• Identifying, hiring, training, developing, and retaining a strong team across multiple locations

• Driving large scale change in a fast-paced environment

• Successfully building positive, collaborative relationships with internal and external partners and customers

• Developing a positive corporate culture in line with organizational values

• Previous experience with mergers and acquisitions a plus

• P&L ownership/management experience