Director EMEA Openings & Transitions Central Services

Hilton is one of the largest and fastest growing hospitality companies in the world, with more than 6,400 properties with more than 1 million rooms in 119 countries and territories. In the 101 years since our founding, we have defined the hospitality industry and established a portfolio of 18 world-class brands, including our flagship Hilton Hotels & Resorts brand, which is the most recognized hotel brand in the world. We have more than 112 million members in our award–winning customer loyalty program, Hilton Honors.

What will I be doing?
This position will be responsible for forming a centralised openings & transitions support team and developing & implementing productised solutions that support the various internal and external stockholders throughout the opening and/or transition timeline. 

This position will centrally manage and coordinate the openings & transitions processes, agnostically for all hotels, with key responsibilities being: 

•    Recruiting specialist talent with specific skills and experience to form the team
•    Prioritising key openings & transitions activities and developing appropriate ‘off the shelf’ solutions, supported by relevant playbooks and self-facilitated tools & resources.  
•    Fully launching and implementing a single technology platform for openings & transitions and retiring all legacy systems 
•    Implementing enterprise, brand and regional tactics within the opening & transitions processes and be responsible for the ongoing maintenance and development of the technology empowered opening platform.   

The incumbent of this role will be working closely with internal business partners to develop and deliver innovative packaged solutions which support a faster and more efficient new hotel onboarding and / or transition process and a shorter opening timeline. 

In order to ensure alignment and consistency, and leverage on our resources, this position, as well as all of its direct reports, must be based in the UK and co-located with the wider Brands & Central Operations team and in particular with the EMEA BPS team in Hilton’s Watford office.  

Essential Functions & Skills: 
Planning & Organising Activities 40%
•    Review and reform all current openings & transitions touchpoints, processes and timelines for managed and franchised openings and design a more efficient and transparent process to meet the business needs of owners, franchise partners, managed ops team and internal teams 
•    Develop and implement an effective transition plan to migrate all EMEA openings to Roadmap (salesforces platform) and retire legacy systems. 
•    Develop and implement a Transition and Renovation Roadmap for EMEA, leveraging Saleforce’s resources and experience. 
•    Design an effective handover from opening to BPS, ensuring a smooth transition for hotel teams, owners and managed operations teams. 
Staffing Activities 30%
•    Recruit, train and onboard a new centralised team of specialists, ensuring the team is well balanced and diverse with relevant skills, experience and knowledge of hotel operations, new hotel openings, language skills, digital systems experience, knowledge of different geographical requirements.  
•    Manage the performance and development of the central team, including annual performance and compensation cycles, employee relations issues, learning and development activities and career progression.
Directing Activities 30%
•    Compose and implement Openings support playbooks, tools and resources and productised solutions covering all brand and managed operations new hotel milestones.  
•    Direct planning sessions with internal functional specialists to facilitate the successful support of new hotels in the new support set up.

Direct Reports:
1 x Sr Manager EMEA Openings & Transitions Central Services
(Indirect reports: 3 x Specialists)

What benefits will I receive?
Your benefits will include a competitive starting salary and holiday entitlement. As an employee you will become a member of the Go Hilton Team Member Travel Program, which provides reduced hotel room rates for you, your family & friends! We look forward to explaining in detail the range of excellent benefits that you would expect from a global hotel organization like Hilton.

Essential Criteria
The individual must possess the following knowledge, skills and abilities and be able to perform the essential functions of the job:

•    Demonstrate superior communication and customer service skills to internal and external customer’s audience.
•    Fluent in speaking and writing in English and at least one additional language relevant to a key market in the EMEA region.
•    Substantial experience in Salesforce at an advanced level – be able to train others as required.
•    Relevant IT skills at a high level to support the set-up, implementation and ongoing maintenance of a centralised O&T technology platform. 
•    Relevant commercial & hotel operations experience. 
•    Experience in business project management, in particular the setting up and rolling out of new teams and / or centralised solutions. 
•    Experience working in a shared service environment, including participating in the set-up of a shared service team and relevant processes.
•    The ability to provide creative and innovative support solutions in a diverse business environment.
•    A proven track record in managing medium to large sized teams and dealing with people activities and issues.
•    Able to demonstrate the ability to work effectively with senior stakeholders in all areas of a business.
•    Excellent interpersonal skills that build trust and instill confidence, in order to motivate, influence and engage others, both within their direct team and with stakeholders.