Senior Manager, Strategic Payment Partnership

About the role

The Strategic Partnerships team manages critical payment relationships and is part of the Expedia Global Payments (EGP) organization. EGP is responsible for enabling $100 Billion of customer and supplier payments for a large portfolio of global online travel brands under Expedia Group. The Senior Manager, Payment Strategic Partnerships will drive significant platform and commercial opportunities for EGP.

Responsibilities

• Stay abreast of commercial, regulatory and innovative trends in the payment industry.
• Ensure our payment business is benefited from our partners’ expertise, capabilities and innovations.
• Drive strategic alignment between payment vendors/partners and Expedia Group teams including marketing, advertisement, banking, legal and EGP products.
• Serve as Expedia Inc’s go-to person for the payment vendors and partners to ensure holistic engagement at the enterprise level.
• Define and execute partner/vendor strategy at region, payment method and payment method levels, align partner/vendor strategy roadmap behind EGP goals and priorities, partner with vendors to ensure high-quality, timely delivery of prioritized initiatives.
• Increase partner/vendor performance while maximizing financial benefits for Expedia Group through transparent and effective business reviews including QBRs and weekly calls.
• Conduct partner/vendor benchmarking, RFI, RFP or similar kind.
• Perform contract negotiations and monitor contract performance.
• Establish KPIs to constantly identify opportunities to optimize partner/vendor performance.
• Execute executive-level escalations and resolution for partner/vendor issues that have massive impact.

Requirements

• 8+ years’ experience in strategic partner or vendor management, contract management and negotiations, with a track record of turning around partner relationships to drive significant results.
• 8+ years of experience in independently negotiating contracts, preferably in an e-commerce or IT services environment.

Qualifications

• Communication and Influence Skills: Clearly and succinctly convey information and ideas to individuals and groups; communicate in a focused and compelling way that captures and holds others’ attention. Create and execute influencing strategies that persuade key stakeholders to take action towards advancing shared interests and business goals. Balance results with relationship.
• Analytical Skills: Secure and compare information from multiple sources to identify core issues; commit to an action plan after weighing alternative solutions against decision criteria; proactively and quickly make sense of complex issues; respond effectively to complex and ambiguous situations.
• Business Acumen: Demonstrate a keen understanding of basic business operations and the organizational levers (systems, processes, departments, functions) that drive profitable growth; draw from personal experience to quickly evaluate business plans and processes to identify data or recommendations that need further investigation.
• Decision making: Use a factual approach to decision-making by systematically collecting valid and reliable data. Rely on the data rather than on emotions. Have the backbone to disagree and commit to the decisions towards better business outcomes.

Preferred Qualifications

• Expertise in one of the following industries would be a plus: Travel, Airlines, Hotels, and payments.
• Passion for Results: Maintain high standards for the individual, team, and organizational accomplishment; tenaciously work to meet or exceed challenging goals; derive satisfaction from goal achievement and continuous improvement.
• Experience using AI or machine-learning-driven tools (e.g., anomaly detection, forecasting, decision-support dashboards) in a payments, financial operations, or e-commerce environment, including managing end-to-end program delivery, defining and tracking KPIs, and driving continuous improvement through stakeholder and partner relationship management.
• Experience utilizing Agentic AI to improve, operationalize, or automate repetitive processes, including leading program roadmaps, setting and monitoring success metrics/KPIs, and managing vendor contracts and strategic relationships to ensure performance, compliance, and long-term value.

Pay

The total cash range for this position in Seattle is $146,000.00 to $204,500.00. Employees in this role have the potential to increase their pay up to $233,500.00, which is the top of the range, based on ongoing, demonstrated, and sustained performance in the role.

Benefits and Perks

Expedia Group offers benefits and perks designed to support employees and their families, including medical, dental, and vision coverage, paid time off, an Employee Assistance Program, wellness and travel reimbursement, travel discounts, and International Airlines Travel Agent Network (IATAN) membership.