Program Lead, Airports & Venues CX

About the role

Airports and venues are Uber's highest-stakes customer experience moments. Airports alone account for approximately 15% of Uber's Mobility Gross Bookings globally — a disproportionate share driven by our premium portfolio, high-value riders, and the structural complexity of airport operations across 100+ priority hubs worldwide. On a platform completing more than 40 million trips every day, airport journeys punch well above their weight: they disproportionately shape how business travelers, tourists, and premium users perceive Uber. A single poor experience at a priority hub doesn't just generate a support ticket; it drives churn among the cohort most likely to be first-trip riders, most likely to upgrade to premium products, and most likely to become long-term brand advocates. The Airports & Venues CX program owns the global strategy to eliminate that friction at scale. We sit at the intersection of Ops, Product, and CX — translating on-the-ground airport complexity (staging lots, regulatory constraints, fare structures, matching algorithms, wayfinding failures) into systemic, data-driven solutions that reduce defects across the top 100+ priority airports worldwide including venues. As Program Lead, Airports & Venues CX, you will own the global defect reduction program — the most consequential initiative within this domain. You are the person who understands what is driving each basis point of airport defect rates across key issues such as fare disputes, cancellations, lost items or transaction issues at our priority hubs, and builds the cross-functional machine that surfaces customer insights, quantifies root causes, drives and advocates for product and on-ground improvements to bring that number down — structurally, not episodically. This role is ideal for a senior CX, support operations, product operations, or travel operations leader who combines analytical rigor, customer empathy, AI fluency, and deep comfort operating in complex physical environments such as airports, airlines, mobility platforms, hospitality, logistics, or large-scale venues.

Responsibilities

• Own the global airport defect reduction program end-to-end. Use AI to transform how we detect, diagnose, prevent, and resolve airport CX defects/painful experiences.
• Define and maintain the global defect taxonomy for Airports & Venues — classifying root causes across top issues (fare disputes, cancellations, lost items) across the top priority airports and venues.
• Build and run the global issue tracker: a systematically maintained, owner-assigned, SLA-tracked view of open defects across priority airports — published periodically to global and regional leadership.
• Lead root-cause elimination: move beyond ticket-level fixes to identify structural product, policy, and operational changes that prevent defect categories from recurring. Propose and advocate for product improvements to fix painful experiences upstream.
• Establish defect baselines and reduction targets across the top airports and venues in collaboration with Rider and Driver CX and Ops; track and present progress periodically and systematically to senior stakeholders.
• Architect and operate the actionable intelligence infrastructure: define KPIs, parameters, and alerting thresholds to surface emerging friction patterns before they compound.
• Design and own the monthly Global Airport VOC Report — synthesizing rider and driver voice-of-customer signals across EMEA, US&C, LATAM, and APAC into prioritized, actionable insights shared with Ops and Product partners.
• Build real-time, AI-generated actionable intelligence that surfaces which airports are trending in the wrong direction, why, and who owns the resolution.
• Translate intelligence into targeted VoC packages for Ops partners to drive actionable improvements.
• Serve as the primary CX advocate to Product and Engineering for airport-specific improvements.
• Co-own the experimentation roadmap with Product teams: define hypotheses, specify success metrics (defect rate, CSAT, contact rate, refund rate), and read out results to drive feature prioritization.
• Partner downstream with CX tech teams to continually improve support experience and make it more intelligent, empathetic with high resolution quality.
• Develop differentiated support models for high-value users (HVUs) at priority hubs: white-glove SLAs, proactive outreach, and faster resolution pathways — in partnership with the broader CX segmentation and tooling teams.
• Collaborate with Rider and Driver customer experience leads to design hyper-segmented support policies for priority airports and user segments.
• Lead policy pilots in key priority markets and build the framework for scaling what works globally.
• Ensure policy reflects local regulatory nuances and union-governed access constraints that directly affect fare structures and driver economics.
• Serve as the senior interface between global CX leadership and regional execution teams across all four mega-regions.
• Represent Airports & Venues CX in cross-functional forums — acting as the informed, data-backed voice of CX in airport strategy discussions.
• Present program performance, defect trends, and strategic recommendations to Director and VP-level audiences — with the rigor and clarity to drive decisions, not just inform them.
• Negotiate trade-offs with Product, Ops, and BD on airport CX priorities: make the case for why a 10-basis-point improvement in defect rate at LHR justifies a product investment.
• Publish the Global Airport Newsletter (monthly) to Ops and CX stakeholders — establishing the Airports & Venues team as the authoritative intelligence source on airport CX performance globally.

Requirements

• Minimum 5 years of project/program management experience
• Bachelor's Degree or equivalent work experience

Qualifications

• 1+ years domain expertise in travel, aviation, or high-stakes logistics: prior experience at an airline, airport operator, premium travel brand, or logistics platform where operational complexity directly impacted customer experience at scale.
• Strategy or operations background: experience at a leading consulting firm, high-growth tech platform (Amazon, Airbnb, Google), or similar environment with a demonstrated track record of translating ambiguous problems into structured, scalable solutions.
• Proven ownership of complex, cross-functional programs end-to-end: intake to resolution, across multiple regions and stakeholder groups (Product, Engineering, Ops, Policy, Support). Driven structural outcomes, not just managed processes.
• 2+ years analytical foundation: able to define metrics, partner with analytics on dashboards, diagnose root causes from quantitative data, and build business cases for product or policy investment. Familiarity with SQL or equivalent data tools strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to work cross-functionally without direct authority: influenced Product roadmaps, Ops priorities, and senior leaders through the quality of analysis and credibility of recommendations — not through org chart position.
• Excellent written and verbal communication: experience synthesizing complex operational, technical, and policy details into clear narratives and sharp recommendations for executive audiences.
• High comfort with ambiguity and operational complexity: airports and venues are genuinely complex environments (regulatory constraints, matching algorithms, fare structures, wayfinding, multi-stakeholder airport relationships). You bring structure to that complexity rather than waiting for it to be resolved for you.
• Experience with AI-powered support systems: familiarity with virtual assistants, agent assist tools, automation/deflection programs, or experimentation with AI in CX contexts — specifically designing use cases, defining success metrics, and reading results.
• Proven ownership of complex, cross-functional programs end-to-end across Product, Engineering, Operations, Policy, Analytics, and Support teams.
• Excellent executive communication: able to synthesize complex operational, technical, customer, and policy details into clear narratives and sharp recommendations for senior audiences.
• Global fluency: demonstrated ability to work across multiple time zones, adapt global frameworks to local market nuances, and build trusted relationships with regional teams across cultures.

Pay

• New York City, NY-based roles: base salary range USD $162,000 – $180,000 per year
• San Francisco, CA-based roles: base salary range USD $162,000 – $180,000 per year
• All US locations: eligible for Uber's bonus program, may be offered an equity award & other types of compensation

Benefits

• 401(k) plan eligibility for all full-time employees
• Various benefits (details available via Uber's benefits portal)
• Bonus program and potential equity awards

Schedule

Offices remain key to collaboration and Uber's culture. Unless approved for full remote work, employees must spend at least 50% of their time in-office. Some roles, like those at greenlight hubs, require full-time in-office presence. Ask your Recruiter for details about this role's requirements.