Senior Manager, Strategic Partnership

At Expedia Group, we help travelers explore the world, one journey at a time. As a global travel company powered by passionate people, trusted partnerships, and leading technology, we connect travelers, partners, and advertisers through our consumer brands, B2B network, and travel advertising business. Here, you'll do meaningful work that helps millions of people discover, book, and experience travel with more ease, confidence, and joy.

Our five Behaviors-Traveler First, Think Big, Operate with Excellence, Ownership Mindset, and Succeed Together-help foster a supportive environment where people can grow their careers and have the flexibility, benefits, and support to do their best work. Join us and build for travelers everywhere.

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. The role will be responsible for a portfolio of existing and potential payment partners, including gateways, acquirers, issuers and card networks.

The Senior Manager will be driving the following areas for the assigned vendors or partners. In this role you will:

• Stay abreast of commercial, regulatory and innovative trends in the payment industry.
• Ensure our payment business is benefitted 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’ 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.
• Executive‑level escalations and resolution for partner/vendor issues that have massive impact.
• Establish KPIs to constantly identify opportunities to optimize partner/vendor performance.

• Bachelor’s degree in business, finance, economics, technology, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience in payments or partnerships.
• Extensive experience in payments, financial services, or technology, with a focus on managing or owning strategic partnerships, commercial agreements, or payment products.
• Demonstrated ownership of complex partner portfolios or multi‑market payment initiatives, including responsibility for commercial performance, operational excellence, and stakeholder alignment.
• Proven ability to work with technical and product teams on payment capabilities, data‑driven performance analysis, and implementation of partner solutions, including familiarity with AI‑driven systems, tools, or workflows and applying AI/ML concepts to real world products.

• Experience in strategic partner or vendor management, contract management and negotiations, with a track record of turning around partner relationships to drive significant results.
• Experience in independently negotiating contracts, preferably in an e‑commerce or IT services environment.
• 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.,…