Regional Managing Director, UK & Ireland

Position Summary / Job Purpose:

Reporting to the Managing Director UK & EMEA (Silversea Cruises), this person provides the leadership needed in Agency Partners/Trade Partners (“Trade”) and Consumer Sales to achieve targets for revenue, market profitability, segment growth, and industry leadership. This position is also responsible for the leadership guidance for sales & administration of full ship charters, incentive groups, large affinity groups, and individual incentive travel through the sales organization.  This executive works closely with the other functional leaders. Possesses overall responsibility for region and is a critical player on the Silversea leadership team.

The REGIONAL Managing Director, UK & IR is responsible for developing and implementing the Trade business strategy in an increasingly competitive and dynamic industry within the existing commercial policy and budget. He/she is directly accountable for Silversea’s UK/IR revenue and profitability. This includes the direction and management of all Trade/Consumer sales, including pipeline forecasting, regional strategy, target-setting, team-building and overall Trade/Consumer sales management. This is a growth oriented position where he/she will be expected to facilitate increase in revenue streams for all channels. The Managing Director, UK/IR will be personally proactive in generating new business, launching and developing new relationships across multiple, local sales channels.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Develop a distinctive, competitive Trade business strategy that gives the company an advantage in the marketplace enabling Trade market share growth and preferred customer partnerships
• Be a positive advocate for the advancement of the industry, company, category, key channels and professional organisations
• Implement Silversea’s Trade/Consumer Sales strategy locally and recommend new growth opportunities; develop and execute strategic initiatives, managing the tactics and execution to penetrate new segments and achieve Trade/Consumer revenue targets.
• Lead Trade team, set goals, monitor progress and remain current on all key country employee performance appraisals and talent management processes/systems
• Deliver top-line and bottom-line Trade/Consumer sales results, achieve growth, productivity and market share improvement targets
• Working very close with the Head of Direct in the market to achieve goals
• Define current and future market conditions in service performance, customer desires, new product/service development and business requirements
• Maximize charter and incentive group occupancy, average rate and yield, in cooperation with the Silversea C&I team in Miami.
• Ensure accounts and guests are provided timely and efficient customer service resulting in high levels of customer satisfaction
• Provide employees with the authority, accountability, training, information and resources to achieve their full potential and successfully drive the company’s performance
• Able to build strong brand awareness; develop superior relationships
• Support the success of the sales function for all channels
• Effectively represent the company as the key spokesperson to the market, customers, business partners and employees
• Ensure all compliance, quality and regulatory as well as legal requirements are delivered
• Monitor and report local sales trends, productivity, budgets and investments and pro-actively anticipate the business unit consequences
• Ensure that all marketing and business practices in the country are fully compliant with Silversea policies, applicable laws/regulations, and high standards of ethics and integrity
• Review of periodic financial and operational reports
• Eloquently communicate the company’s corporate and strategic messages with the media
• Communicate in the front-line with Silversea guests and represent the company at relevant trade shows and conferences seeking profile speaker/opinion leader opportunities
• Regular precise reporting of Trade activity to President and Chief Executive Officer (Silversea Cruises)
• Maintain appropriate liaison with internal organizational peers, such as; Revenue Management, Hotel Operations, Finance, Purchasing, Marketing, & any other pertinent department that support guest and sales.
• Monitor customer, market and competitor activity and provide feedback to leadership team and other company functions
• Monitor and manage trade agencies activities on bid on SSC brand keywork on search engines
• Leading together with shared services of RCG the implementation of agency contracts in the respective territories
• Creating a common team spirit between Trade and Direct functions

Education, Experience, Knowledge & Skills:

• Strong academic record, educated to degree level. MBA is desirable but not essential
• Experience working in travel sector, with proven travel industry knowledge of the UK & Ireland market
• Experience of a leadership role, responsible for driving performance in a competitive market
• Strong network with agency partners and broader distribution channels.
• Excellent delivery project skills
• Excellent written and verbal communication and presentation skills.
• Must be well organised and detail oriented
• Must be self-motivated and able to take initiative, developing new business opportunities and relationships
• Must possess a positive, team-player attitude, whilst also having the ability to lead from the front
• Organisational skills with the ability to manage staff members while personally performing analytical duties,
• Proactive individual, who will take the initiative researching problems and improving processes
• Ability to work in a fast paced, deadline-oriented environment
• Highly empathic leadership style

Key Relationships

• Increasing new to Silversea guests as a % of overall business
• Increasing Expedition guests as a % of overall business
• Increasing Top Suite sales as a % of overall business
• Customer satisfaction vs. target and past year
• Talent retention and development vs. target and past year
• New market penetration; Market share growth by segment
• Travel Agents’/Trade Partners satisfaction

Financial Responsibilities (For Management Roles Only)

• Trade/Consumer Sales (pax build and revenues) versus assigned targets and previous year performance.
• Increasing new to Silversea guests as a % of overall business
• Market shares (branded and total) versus target and past year
• Trade/Consumer Revenue and revenue growth, sales versus forecast, sales verses quota
• Margin Improvement
• New market penetration; Market share growth by segment, while making sure Direct`s share will grow overproportionally
• Sales pipeline – Financial responsibility on ROI driven spend
• Achieve targeted percentage cost of sales to revenue as per Plan
• Achieve targeted percentage cost of sales incentives to revenue as per Plan