Senior Manager 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 leading a team of specialists forming the EMEA  central openings & transitions COE and will be responsible for overseeing the daily work of the team, assigning relevant onboarding support resources to managed and franchised properties across EMEA and ensuring specialist skills are mapped and allocated to the right projects, based on language, geography brand and  the operating tiering model.  

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

•    Daily management of the team of specialists. 
•    Regularly monitoring progress and ensuring key new hotel onboarding milestones are completed, on time and with quality input from the hotel team.
•    Reporting on project status and indicating delivery risk and required support to deliver on opening date targets. 
•    Ensuring technology platform and associated productised solutions are always up to date, accessible to all stockholders and always maintained as the single source of truth for all new openings.  
•    Working in close partnership with the Watford based BPS team to ensure smooth and effective transition from onboarding to post-opening support. 

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 and Organising Activities 40%
•    Allocate hotels within Saleforces to ensure pre-openong process starts at appropriate point with all hotel facing self-service tools ready and up to date 
•    Allocate specialist resources to pre-opening and / or transition projects  
•    Oversee marquee openings and ensure successful new hotel onboarding 
Staffing Activities 30%
•    Support the Director with recruitment, training and onboarding 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.  
•    Day to day management of direct reports including learning and development, performance management and employee relations activities.
Directing Activities 30%
•    Develop and write relevant playbook solutions covering all brand and managed operations new hotel opening tasks   
•    Support the Director and VP O&T with various business peojects and initiatives as required

Direct Reports:
•    3 x Specialist EMEA Openings & Transitions Central Operations  

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 customers.
•    Ability to multi-task day-to-day job functions while supporting/solving escalations generated from multiple sources by setting priorities and ensuring transparent communication with all stakeholders. 
•    Relevant and recent commercial and hotel operations experience 
•    Analytical skills to evaluate business information and translate data into end user solutions & resources 
•    Experience in project management and leading a diverse team 
•    Previous experience in direct people management
•    Fluent in speaking and writing in English 
•    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. 
•    Experience in business project management, in particular the setting up and rolling out of new teams and / or centralised solutions. 
•    Able to demonstrate the ability to work effectively with senior stakeholders in all areas of a business.
•    Excellent interpersonal skills that build trust and instil confidence, in order to motivate, influence and engage others, both within their direct team and with stakeholders.