Senior Program Manager (For independent contractors)

The role is Senior Program Manager within the Marketplace department, sitting in the SBOPC sub-department/track at Career Level H. It is a manager role, reporting to the Director SBOPC, with global geographical responsibility. Covering for current manager being on parental leave.

About Marketplace: Marketplace at Booking.com creates the connected travel experiences that link each stage of the trip, from discovery and booking through the in-trip experience and beyond. The team you will join brings together strategy, business operations, program management and technology to make travel smoother, faster and more seamless for customers and partners.

Role Description: We are urgently seeking a highly experienced Senior Program Manager with people management experience for a 6-month caretaker contract starting ASAP. In this strategic role, you will oversee the Marketplace program portfolio, including Connected Trip, Accelerate AI and Regulatory Programs, and directly line-manage a high-performing team of 7-9 Program and Project Managers. You will align cross-departmental initiatives, establish lean delivery governance, act as the Business Operations Coordinator for Programs to ensure delivery metrics are integrated into broader organisational rhythms, and be accountable and partially responsible for new and improved ways of working for the Marketplace Program Management Office.

Tasks & Responsibilities:

• People & Team Leadership: You will directly manage, coach and develop a team of 7 Program and Project Managers, with full ownership of performance, craft development and team well-being, while fostering a culture of high performance and continuous learning.

  
  

• Program Portfolio Oversight, Delivery and Ways of Working: You will be responsible for the successful delivery and senior oversight of strategic cross-department programs, including Connected Trip, Accelerate AI and regulatory work. You will ensure sponsors always have a clear, decision-ready view, while aligning stakeholders and managing program intake and ongoing risk.

  
  

• Thought Leadership, Program Excellence and Other Tasks: You will drive the design, standardisation and execution of the PMO office using industry best practice, and work with business operations to ensure program inputs, data and delivery metrics are deeply integrated into broader business operations and planning cycles.

Requirements:

The ideal candidate should have strong experience across all of the areas below, particularly managing programs, managing people and improving team ways of working. Success in this role means leaving behind a high-performing team and measurable business impact across all of their constituent programs.

• People & Team Leadership: Proven track record leading teams that operate cross functional and at high pace, with a strong dedication to further develop our people and ways of working in Program and Project Management.

  
  

• Program Management: 10+ years of experience managing complex programs end-to-end in a tech and product environment, using a wide range of methodologies, especially agile and lean. You have strong experience managing dependencies, are comfortable designing PMO ways of working from scratch, and are deeply focused on tracking measurable impact through relevant metrics. Experience with Jira, Miro and Google Workspace is preferred.

• Stakeholder Management: High organisational savviness with a wide and diverse network. You are credible, trusted by senior audiences and comfortable influencing leadership up to SVP level.

  
  

• Personal Skills: You are an excellent problem solver who is comfortable operating in ambiguity and brings mature business judgement, a data-driven mindset and a proactive and constructive approach. You think strategically but stay close to execution, create clarity on scope and accountability, break deadlocks, build alignment and engagement and drive results without getting stuck in the ambiguity.

  
  

• Tools / Artificial Intelligence: You are comfortable working with AI tools to solve complex problems and improve productivity, and have knowledge of Jira, OBoard, Google Suite and AI tools like Glean, Gemini and Claude.