Data & AI Governance Operations Specialist (PMO)

Role Description

At Booking.com, data drives our decisions. Technology is at our core. And innovation is everywhere.

About the team

The Data & AI Governance department enables extending the governance theme of policies, standards, processes and technology for governing data and AI to driving excellence in our approach to leveraging secure, trusted, accessible data for data driven decision making through:

• An overarching Data & AI Policy to include associated standards
• Data & AI Governance including meta and master data management
• Data & AI Delivery Governance
• Data & AI Quality including both technical and business quality measures

This enables the maturity of Data and AI capabilities across Booking.com, unlocking data and algorithms as assets for delivering innovative growth opportunities and cost saving operational efficiencies.

Role overview

As a Data & AI Governance Operations Specialist, you will bring a strong Data & AI Governance and project management background. You will have excellent communication skills, with demonstrated experience leading medium to large projects, and experience assessing business needs, developing implementation strategy, and leading end-to-end activities for Data & AI Governance initiatives.

The role is responsible for working with senior stakeholders across Global/Regional/Site responsibilities, and with teams representing multiple sub-departments (and sometimes other departments within Booking.com). You are responsible for the success of the projects you lead, including (but not limited to) requirements gathering and needs analyses, securing buy-in from senior stakeholders, end-to-end planning, risk and dependency identification and management, presenting findings and requests for support, leading the project team, administering project documents and supporting meetings, and ensuring constant alignment of initiatives to the goals of Booking.com, the Data & AI Governance department, and partner teams. You are expected to learn and adapt to new tools and technologies as a champion of change, supporting a high velocity of change and enabling an agile development environment where releases are frequent and impact many layers of the organization.

This role may also get involved in running a strategy workstream from problem definition to delivering a solution (including the implementation strategy) or executing change management initiatives and communications plans.

Key job responsibilities and duties

Data and AI Governance

• Data Stewardship: Manage and define Data Ownership and Stewardship structures, ensuring clear accountability and proper onboarding of data stewards.
• Data & AI Governance Principles: Apply and enforce Data & AI Governance principles, processes, and standards to ensure consistent and effective governance practices.
• Regulatory Compliance: Ensure adherence to Data & AI regulatory policies, such as GDPR, DMA, SOx, and the EU AI Act, by staying updated on compliance requirements and integrating them into governance frameworks.
• Data & AI Governance Practices: Oversee data cataloging, data profiling, metadata management, data classification, data lineage, master data management, and workflows, ensuring robust governance of critical data elements.

Project Management

• Craft Methodology and Standards: Apply structured methodology to and lead project/change management activities.
• E2E Project Management: Lead independently end-to-end (E2E) low/medium projects/workstreams and/or support high complexity projects from scoping to execution, analysis, recommendation and implementation.
• Project Initiation and Planning: With limited supervision, drive program scoping and planning, working with different teams and creating associated documentation.
• Project Implementation and Completion: Drive project plan execution, ensuring project objectives are met on agreed timelines; track and report progress; and ensure project closing and correct handover to business as usual.
• Project Governance: With limited supervision, design and implement project governance and delivery structure to ensure efficient delivery, communication and decision making.
• Delivery/Impact: Drive the progress and successful delivery of initiatives that bring value to the business.
• Stakeholder Management: Serve as primary point of contact for project-related queries; work and productively interact with stakeholders up to Senior Managers and Senior Director level.
• Success Metrics: Define and measure the success metrics of the projects in scope.
• Facilitator: Lead independent workshops to support the delivery of the projects.
• Project Management Tooling: Utilize Atlassian Jira and Confluence to manage project workflows, track progress, and collaborate effectively across teams.
• Change Management: Apply change management methodologies, with an understanding of the change curve and process, to guide teams through transitions and ensure smooth adaptation to changes.

Role qualifications and requirements

• 2+ years of experience around Data Governance, or alternatively 3+ years of experience working with data (Data Analysis, Business Analysis, or analytical background).
• 3–5 years of relevant project management experience.
• PMP or Agile Project Management (or equivalent) certification is preferred.

Benefits & perks

Booking.com’s Total Rewards Philosophy is not only about compensation but also about benefits. We offer a competitive compensation and benefits package, as well unique-to-Booking.com benefits which include:

• Annual paid time off and generous paid leave scheme including: parent, grandparent, bereavement, and care leave.
• Hybrid working including flexible working arrangements, and up to 20 days per year working from abroad (home country).
• Industry leading product discounts - up to 1400 per year - for yourself, including automatic Genius Level 3 status and Booking.com wallet credit.
• Living and working in Amsterdam, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Europe.
• Contributing to a high scale, complex, world renowned product and seeing real-time impact of your work on millions of travelers worldwide.
• Working in a fast-paced and performance driven culture.
• Opportunity to utilize technical expertise, leadership capabilities and entrepreneurial spirit.
• Promote and drive impactful and innovative engineering solutions.
• Technical, behavioral and interpersonal competence advancement via on-the-job opportunities, experimental projects, hackathons, conferences and active community participation.
• Competitive compensation and benefits package and some great added perks of working in the home city of Booking.com.