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Established in 1996 in Amsterdam, Booking.com has grown from a small Dutch start-up to the third largest e-commerce company in the world. Booking.com is the largest business within Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG) and accounts for the vast majority of Booking Holdings’ total revenue. Booking Holdings is a leading Fortune 500 e-commerce conglomerate with a market cap of approximately $80 billion.

With a mission to make it easier for everyone to experience the world, Booking.com invests in digital technology that helps take the friction out of travel. Booking.com connects travelers with the world’s largest selection of incredible places to stay, including everything from apartments, vacation homes, and family-run B&Bs to 5-star luxury resorts and even tree houses. The Booking.com website and mobile apps are available in over 40 languages, offer more than +28 million total reported listings, and cover +140K destinations in +200 countries worldwide.

Booking.com, the world’s leading accommodation website, is looking for a Public Affairs Manager for US Federal Affairs, based in Washington, DC to help drive its global Public Affairs function.

You will have a key role in shaping, leading and implementing our public policy strategy in the US. You will be representing the interests of Booking.com and other Booking Holdings brands (KAYAK, Priceline, and OpenTable, among others) before Congress, the Executive Branch, and other relevant policy and regulatory partners at the federal level, and help us analyze complex legal, regulatory and policy developments impacting the technology and travel industries.

The successful candidate will report into the Head of Public Affairs for the Americas, based in Washington, DC. You will also work closely with the Head of Public Affairs for State and Local Policy, based in New York City as well. You will additionally work with other departments within the company, local offices, and external partners such as consultancies and trade associations.

This is a great opportunity for someone wanting to make a real impact to enable everyone to be able to experience the world.

Key responsibilities

• Help shape, lead and implement a public policy strategy to support business priorities and Booking.com’s corporate profile
• Represent the company’s interests by engaging with relevant political and regulatory audiences
• Ensure continuous monitoring and evaluation of relevant discussions, regulatory decisions and partner activity on key public affairs / reputational issues
• Draft position papers, consultation responses, presentations and briefings for internal and external meetings, and organize campaigns and events to advance those messages
• Disseminate and adapt centrally developed content in order to establish Booking.com as a thought leader in the area of travel and tech
• Proactively coordinate and communicate internally to align messaging and provide colleagues with a thorough understanding of developments at the US federal level
• Help facilitate high-level meetings with key partners to promote and advocate the company’s public policy priorities
• Coordinate with external consultants and closely align with relevant trade associations.

The ideal candidate for the role of Public Affairs Manager for US Federal Affairs will have:

• Bachelor degree in political science or other relevant fields
• 5-10 years of proven experience at the federal level, ideally with government experience combined with in-house or consultancy experience in the area of public policy / public affairs
• Good understanding of policy and legal challenges facing the tech industry and affinity with the tourism and travel industry
• Excellent oral communications skills and ability to distill complex information into clear messages that will resonate with political and regulatory audiences, as well as into succinct updates for the business teams
• High quality written skills and practical experience in drafting materials for use by regulators, senior executives or politicians
• Experience developing creative and effective public affairs campaigns that underpin the company’s business objectives
• Outstanding organizational abilities, in particular, the capacity to handle multiple work streams at one time and the proactivity to drive work programs forward and co-ordinate the involvement of all relevant partners
• Experience working in fast-paced, multicultural environments
• Experience with handling sensitive reputational issues and/or crises
• Ability to engage directly with policy makers and to act as a spokesperson for the business
• Self-starter that is also an excellent teammate
• Strong influencing skills and ability to inspire confidence, as well as the ability to establish and maintain effective relationships at all levels
• High level of integrity with ability to develop both internal and external credibility
• Hands-on, results-focused and impactful.

Further skills we are looking for:

• Aligning with Booking.com’s Values (Think Customer First, Succeed Together, Own It, Learn Forever, Do the Right Thing)
• Being curious, flexible, and a creative & pragmatic problem solver
• Confident yet collaborative
• Ability to influence stakeholders across all levels within the organization
• Being proactive, resilient and having the drive to get things done
• Having sound judgment and the ability to see the big picture and simultaneously appreciate the details necessary to operationalize the strategy
• Having the courage to take positions and make tough judgment calls
• Being a team player, self aware and a good listener – a diverse group will always find the best solution!
• Ability to move with agility, prioritize workloads and meet deadlines
• Forward thinking with an interest in emerging issues in legal and policy.

Booking.com ensures equal employment opportunity to all employees and applicants. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, colour, family or medical care leave, gender, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex, pregnancy and childbirth, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws and regulations. We aspire to have a workplace that reflects all of the diverse communities we serve and we welcome and encourage candidates from all backgrounds and experiences to apply for roles on our team. We work to cultivate an inclusive culture in which all of our employees can be their authentic selves.

Why join the Legal & Public Affairs Team now?

Booking.com’s Legal & Public Affairs team is on a transformational journey at a pivotal time for e-commerce and travel (think: growth, innovation, changes to how we operate); you will have an opportunity to actively shape the Department’s future.  The Legal & Public Affairs team is also a critical part of the enablement of Booking.com’s strategy of the Connected Trip (a travel experience that includes not just accommodation, but also transportation, attractions, experiences, payments, flights etc).

This is a journey that requires close business and Legal & Public Affairs partnerships to navigate complex regulatory environments, build new products, and negotiate increasingly elaborate commercial deals, among other important projects our teams get involved every day.  To tackle this mission, it all starts with a strong team passionate about growing Booking.com in an ethical and sustainable way!

Who we are:

To match our global footprint and the array of challenges we face, we are proud to highlight the diversity that exists across this group. We are a team of approximately 130 professionals –  representing more than 34 nationalities – with lawyers qualified in many different countries, as well as non-lawyers with public policy, economics, compliance and risk backgrounds. Our team’s previous experience spans across a multitude of industries with team members having worked for major global companies (including Uber, American Express, Airbnb, Amazon, Google, Nokia), tech and other startups, government entities (e.g., the Dutch Competition Authority), and reputable international law firms (e.g., Hogan Lovells, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Baker Mckenzie), and Public Affairs firms (e.g., FTI Consulting, FIPRA, Brunswick).

In addition to our day-to-day work, we actively seek opportunities for our team members to engage in the wider global legal and public affairs communities through speaking engagements, training programs, and association memberships. Some of our lawyers are Board members of Consumer Law associations, Competition Law associations, Privacy associations, etc.  We also believe in actively engaging with stakeholders to share our insights on policies affecting the travel experience and how travel tech innovations can fuel the digital transformation of the travel industry.  For example, we recently launched Booking.com’s Public Affairs blog, where we publish our position on key policy issues (A World Worth Experiencing).

As a team, we believe in:

• Integrating with the Business and Legal having a “seat at the table”: we are decision makers that can have a real impact on Booking.com’s future
• Booking’s mission of making it easier for everyone to experience the world. Travel helps people become more open minded, curious and flexible
• Allowing members of our teams to experience different areas or, if they want to be specialists, give them the tools to become more effective in their jobs
• Providing holistic legal and public affairs advice; our team should not work in silos
• Always looking for better ways of doing things, improving our Legal Operations function, innovating and exchanging best practices
• Accepting that it’s okay to make mistakes as long as we learn from them
• Having a sense of humor and having fun working together; we are a team that likes to collaborate and share in joys and challenges together!