Senior Director, Commercial Planning & Sales Operations

ABOUT US

Silversea Cruises is the leading ultra-luxury and expedition cruise line—acclaimed for both its all-inclusive lifestyle offering and its global destination portfolio. Silversea’s guests travel deep into over 900 destinations across all seven continents, enjoying a curated selection of immersive experiences in the world’s most remarkable places. Among the most comfortable and spacious ships at sea, each of the cruise line’s ships enjoys an atmosphere of elegance, conviviality, and whispered luxury.

POSITION OVERVIEW

Commercial Planning & Sales Operations is the key function for the coordination of the commercial strategy and the optimization of resources in all markets.

The Commercial Planning Senior Director will lead the team responsible for the definition of the commercial strategy of Silversea Worldwide by driving the overall directions to be followed by each single geographical area; this function is also fundamental for ensuring the operative implementation of key projects is delivered effectively to sustain the business development of the organization. Salesforce, the MDs and the Direct will be guided by the directions set by this department through actionable insights and proper analytics and sales intelligence. The team is also owner of strategic projects related to Contact Center, trade partners efficiency, cost control acquisition as well as sales transformation and enablement. The sales intelligence and Continuous improvement is another core area of this department which will be supporting both the optimization and transformation of the B2B and B2C sales approach. The enlarged scope of the function will further enable the identification of strategical insights supporting the overall company goals (financially, branding, customer expectations, business relations improvements etc) through the development and enhancement of analytics tools.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Be the pillar of the sales transformation of the Silversea organization by revolutionizing the sales approach for both B2B and B2C through ad hoc but continuous projects; this is a brand new asset for the organization as a whole which will contribute in creating added value from a commercial perspective;

Create a sales enablement culture and mindset where the continuous enablement comes alongside the optimization as well as the transformation of the way of selling; this is a strategic change in the sales organization where the commercial decision making is now centrally and not locally driven;

Collaborate with senior leadership to design, develop and execute 5 and 10-year strategic commercial plan in line with organizational goals.

Partner with senior leadership and market leaders to design and develop Annual Operating Plan (AOP) for each of the global markets for the Silversea brand.

Design and lead AOP quarterly check in and alignment meetings with Silversea global market stakeholders, developing strategies to address gaps to KPIs with local commercial planning teams.

Coordinate cross markets business reviews through ad hoc governance model in conjunction with Revenue Management and Planning & Forecasting;

Lead the Commercial planning strategy definition Develop and execute business strategies to deliver channels growth in accordance with the strategic plans through:

Setting sales targets by market, channel, and sub-channel, while forecasting and establishing annual sales quotas that project anticipated sales volume and profit for each segment.

Managing and distributing the SG&A budget effectively.

Designing and supervising the incentive programs for both internal and external stakeholders.

Define and adapt the overall market strategies and tactics, sales channels and Key Accounts optimization;

Net Ticket Revenue, Commission and Over commission budget definition with Revenue Management and markets while defining risks and opportunities from a commercial perspective

Support to Revenue Management for the definition of quarterly forecast and monthly sourcing shift

Definition, approval and ownership of sales performance reporting & monitoring tool process

QUALIFICATIONS, KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

10-15 years of experience in tourism & leisure businesses, within commercial or analytical functions such as: revenue management, pricing, commercial planning, business development

Business and commercial acumen in the tourism & leisure industry

Advanced experience in sales analytics for international organizations in tourism & leisure industry

Advanced experience in budget & forecasting

Experience with sales and business strategies development

Project management experience

Advanced negotiation and communication skills

Team management and leadership (direct and indirect)

Experience in luxury businesses and/or cruise industry as a plus