Sr Manager Finance Operations

About Us: At Booking.com, data drives our decisions. Technology is at our core. And innovation is everywhere. But our company is more than datasets, lines of code or A/B tests. We're the thrill of the first night in a new place. The excitement of the next morning. The friends you encounter. The journeys you take. The sights you see. And the memories you make. Through our products, partners and people, we make it easier for everyone to experience the world.

The Role

We are seeking an experienced and highly analytical Senior Manager of Payment Operations to lead and optimize the execution of all bank transfer payments across our diverse Business Units (BUs). This critical role is responsible for ensuring the efficient, accurate, timely, and compliant processing of high-volume, multi-currency bank transfers, supporting Booking.com's core business as well as accounts payable, payroll, and intercompany settlements.

• Lead Daily Operations: Oversee the end-to-end execution of all outbound and inbound bank transfers (e.g., ACH, SEPA, SWIFT, wires) across multiple currencies and BUs, ensuring payments are processed accurately and on schedule.
• Incident Management: Establish and lead the process for rapid resolution of payment failures, rejections, returns, and reconciliation exceptions, ensuring root causes are identified and corrected.
• Operational Excellence: Continuously review, analyze, and re-engineer payment processes to drive significant improvements in straight-through processing (STP) rates, reduce manual intervention, and increase operational efficiency.
• System Enhancement: Identify and champion technology initiatives related to payment systems, ERP interfaces, bank file generation, and payment factory implementation.
• Project delivery: Own the realization of complex, business driven, cross-functional innovation and improvement projects, while ensuring global standardization and scalability of the innovation
• Standardization: Develop and enforce standardized payment processes and best practices across all BUs to ensure consistency and scalability.
• Compliance: Ensure all payment operations adhere to internal controls, regulatory requirements (e.g., AML, KYC, sanctions screening), and banking regulations globally.

• Control Environment: Maintain a robust control framework, including segregation of duties, multi-level authorizations, and audit trails for all payment activities.

• Team Leadership: Hire, train, mentor, and manage a high-performing team of payment operations analyst, fostering a culture of accountability, accuracy, and customer service.
• Cross-Functional Partnership: Serve as the primary point of contact for payment execution matters, collaborating effectively with Product, Treasury, Accounting, and BU Leadership. Communicate across different leadership levels to align and drive initiatives acting as a strategic advisor to (Executive) Leadership Team on financial and accounting matters across the company
• Reporting & Analytics: Develop and present key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics (e.g., payment volumes, success rates, exception trends) to senior management.

• Degree - level
• Ideally 8-12 years plus relevant working experience
• Operational: proven experience managing operational teams and processes at scale.
• Technical Expertise: Deep knowledge of global payment processes.
• System Knowledge: Proven experience with ERP systems (e.g., SAP, Oracle) and bespoke payment systems or payment factory solutions.
• Regulatory Knowledge: Strong understanding of payment regulations, compliance requirements.
• Exceptional Analytical and Problem-Solving Skills: Ability to diagnose and solve complex operational and technical payment issues.

• 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

• Let's go places together: How we Hire
• Detailed instructions on post-application requirements including any required application materials, deadlines, portfolios, coding challenges, or other assessments as defined by BU or department.