Payments Regional Growth & Development Lead

Airbnb was born in 2007 when two hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home, and has since grown to over 5 million hosts who have welcomed over 2 billion guest arrivals in almost every country across the globe. Every day, hosts offer unique stays and experiences that make it possible for guests to connect with communities in a more authentic way.

The Community You Will Join:

Our extremely capable team of India-based colleagues strive to make the impossible happen for our inbound and outbound travelers within this big and diverse market. Airbnb Capability Center (ACC) is providing varied services under Community Support thereby providing world-class customer experience to our customers. Besides this, ACC is also building deep capabilities for different verticals like Homes, Finance Technology Group, Finance Shared Services, Payments, Analytics, etc. 

The difference you will make:

You will be an integral part of the Payments Regional Growth and Development team at Airbnb, collaborating with business and payments professionals across Globe. This role supports our mission to ensure Airbnb Payments remains competitive and attuned to market dynamics globally, while helping to shape strategy and execution in various regions. You’ll work cross-functionally, joining a team passionate about innovation in the payments sector.

A typical day:

This individual will join the Payments Regional Growth and Development team, and  in any of the following:

Market Intelligence

• Performance Dashboards. Partner with our data analytics and cross-functional teams to implement (leverage internal market level dashboards to understand and monitor current status of key metrics.
• Research. Gather market intelligence through direct and independent research. 
• Emerging Trends. Stay abreast of emerging trends through publicly available sources and by attending payment and travel industry forums

Payments regional strategy & opportunities

• Market strategy. Define and implement market-level strategies in support of business and Payments priorities and in consultation with the local business teams and cross functional Payment teams.  
• Opportunities. Identify and prioritize in-market payment opportunities to materialize the strategy by leveraging in-market intelligence.
• Execution. Support materialization of opportunities, directly in early stages and indirectly as opportunities progress through their lifecycle.

Operations 

• Cross functional SMEs. Identify business and payments SMEs across key functions, who will focus on market success from a payments lens. 
• Organizational Alignment. Establish an operating rhythm that streamlines current engagement model, demystifies organizational complexities and better connects and aligns the payments and business teams for strategy, planning, key metrics, etc.
• Build Knowledge & Consult. Become the connecting tissue with markets and experts in payments capabilities and roadmap as well as the business’s strategies and priorities.  Enable teams through payments and market expertise. Support global / regional initiatives landing in the market, specifically focusing on strategy for definition, evolution, etc.
• Incidents / Issues: Support remediation of incidents / issues affecting the region and drive remediation with urgency and ownership.
• Legal / Regulatory Updates: Stay up to date on legal risks that may affect the region from a payments perspective.
• Performance Monitoring: Monitor key payment metrics and proactively elevate variances.

Your expertise:

• BS/BA degree in business or technical field
• Min 7 or more years of combined experience across consulting, strategy, and payments.
• Experience in the payments industry is required, ideally from a network or merchant perspective.
• Experience in consulting is required, specifically on proposing market level strategies that incorporate market research, business and payments data, and company goals.
• Must have understanding of payments landscape in at least one of the following regions APAC and/or EMEA; while also being able to build up knowledge in new markets/regions
• Proven excellence in critical thinking, communication, presentation, storytelling and interpersonal skills across different levels of the organization
• Prior experience in Travel industry is a plus 
• Strong program management skills, able to handle multiple concurrent programs with limited control over resources
• Works independently in fast-paced and complex environments
• Proven ability to work cross-functionally, lead strategic and tactical execution within a large functional organization, and enable collaboration (including productive friction), transparency, and accountability across teams
• Strong understanding of software product development processes and methodologies
• Deep knowledge and experience using collaborative project management tools and processes (e.g. JIRA, Asana, AirTable Smartsheets, Google docs, scrum, agile)
• Passion to work on unstructured business problems to help drive & influence change
• Converts complex information, including internal/external business challenges, to compelling business recommendations and best practices to improve products, processes or services
• Uses sophisticated analytical thought to exercise judgment and identify innovative solutions
• Acts as an advisor to leadership
• Consistently demonstrates core values and belonging behaviors
• Ability to independently lead payments market research using proprietary, open-source, and third-party sources

Hybrid Work Requirements & Expectations: 

To support productivity and maintain a professional hybrid work environment, employees are expected to adhere to the following:

• Workspace: A dedicated, quiet, and private workspace free from interruptions and external noise
• Internet Connectivity: During the working hours, maintain a minimum and consistent internet speed of 10 Mbps on your official devices to ensure reliability for work-related tasks, including calls and virtual meetings
• Professionalism: Employees must remain fully engaged, respectful, and maintain a professional presence during virtual meetings, with video participation required unless otherwise approved.
• Confidentiality & Security: Employees are responsible for protecting Airbnb’s Intellectual Property and Confidential Information. Work-related activities, including calls and meetings, must not be conducted in public places, while traveling, or in any setting that may compromise confidentiality or work quality.

Our Commitment To Inclusion & Belonging: 

Airbnb is committed to working with the broadest talent pool possible. We believe diverse ideas foster innovation and engagement, and allow us to attract creatively-led people, and to develop the best products, services and solutions. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply.