Senior Business Operations Associate

Role Description

The Senior Business Operations Associate, reporting to the Director of Business Operations in the CBO Office, supports the translation of business priorities into clear plans, coordinated activities, and consistent follow-through. The role helps implement company-wide planning processes, operating rhythms, governance forums, and reporting mechanisms that enable the organization to run effectively and deliver against its objectives.

Working across Booking.com and with relevant cross-functional teams, the Senior Business Operations Associate coordinates operational activities, gathers and consolidates inputs, and tracks key initiatives, deliverables, dependencies, risks, actions, and timelines. They prepare data-driven insights and high-quality materials for business reviews, leadership discussions, and other senior audiences, helping stakeholders align ways of working and make informed decisions. The role requires strong versatility, contributing across a wide range of initiatives and adding value wherever it is most needed.

The CBO Office is a team of business operations, program and change management professionals dedicated to the organization led by Booking.com’s Chief Business Officer (CBO). The team supports growth and profitability through strategic and operational execution at Booking.com. It is responsible for aligning business units and functions with company objectives, fostering collaboration, enhancing customer experience, leading initiatives to improve organizational effectiveness, resource allocation and performance management, and delivering best-in-class business planning, monitoring of business execution, and program and change management of larger initiatives set by the CBO. The CBO Office is led by the Senior Director of Business Operations.

Key Responsibilities and Duties

• Drive Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) and reporting by coordinating reporting cycles, consolidating inputs, tracking initiatives, milestones, risks, dependencies, and outcomes, preparing portfolio-level insights and materials, and organizing review forums.
• Support the ongoing improvement of the SPM capability by contributing ideas and recommendations to strengthen quality, consistency, and maturity over time, while senior leaders retain strategic direction and investment decisions.
• Support operational planning and execution across annual, quarterly, and ad hoc planning processes by coordinating input gathering, validating feasibility, maintaining timelines, tracking deliverables, and following up on agreed plans.
• Facilitate the Rhythm of Business cadence by supporting recurring business reviews, governance forums, and leadership meetings through agenda coordination, materials preparation, decision documentation, and action tracking.
• Generate data-driven insights and monitor performance by synthesizing qualitative and quantitative data into executive-ready dashboards, presentations, and reviews that support leadership decision-making.
• Proactively surface risks and opportunities by monitoring operational realities and providing data-backed recommendations to enable timely course correction.
• Connect cross-functional activities and dependencies by working across Booking.com to gather information, link related workstreams, surface risks, and support alignment on owners, actions, and timelines.
• Improve processes and standardize ways of working by partnering with operational teams to identify improvement opportunities, pressure-test proposed approaches, and support trade-off discussions to ensure decisions are both strategically sound and practically executable.
• Deliver high-impact projects and change initiatives by coordinating activities, conducting analysis, preparing materials, and ensuring agreed actions are completed.
• Drive effective business operations by applying structured methodologies, shaping and executing key processes and initiatives, and strengthening ways of working through coaching, best-practice sharing, and cross-team collaboration.

Role Qualifications and Requirements

Mandatory Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree required.
• 5-8+ years of experience in strategy, business operations, strategic portfolio management, or a similar operational function at a fast-paced, complex organization.
• Solid experience working and executing initiatives within a matrix-organization (consultancy experience alone will not be considered).
• Planning & Reporting: In-depth experience leading strategic and/or operational planning processes and reporting across large programs or business units.
• Strategic (Lean) Portfolio Management: Experience prioritizing and governing portfolios of strategic initiatives, dependencies, risks, and execution.
• Stakeholder Management & Leadership: Strong ability to influence senior stakeholders (up to Director level), streamline processes, and act as a central point of contact.
• Domain Expertise: Experience working with digital customer-facing cross-functional teams, especially product and engineering/development.
• Financial & Analytical Acumen: Basic financial knowledge (e.g., reading a P&L) and solid data/insights analytical skills (quantitative and qualitative).
• Change Management & Communication: Exemplary communication skills with an embracing change mindset, and a high bar of excellence in producing leadership-ready presentation materials.
• Technology & Tools: Experience with work management/planning tools (e.g., Jira/Atlassian suite) and passion for leveraging technology to improve planning/execution.

Desirable Skills (Preferred):

• Master's degree in Business or a related field.
• Experience in a B2C technology, platform, or marketplace company.
• Fluency in SQL or experience working closely with data/analytics teams.

Benefits & Perks - Global Impact, Personal Relevance:

• 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.