FreeHire

sabre

Chief of Staff – Global Commercial Airline Technology

Show

Powering the agentic revolution in travel. Sabre is an AI-native technology leader, backed by one of the world’s largest travel data clouds. Built on an open, modular, cloud-native architecture, Sabre serves as the backbone for both established leaders and bold, new disruptors, guiding them to the next age of travel retailing through intelligent, connected, and personalized experiences. With AI at its core and operating at unparalleled scale, Sabre transforms insights into innovation, empowering airlines, hoteliers, agencies and other partners to retail, distribute and fulfill travel worldwide.

The Chief of Staff (CoS) is the principal strategic partner to the Chief Commercial Officer (CCO). In this high-impact role, you will oversee progress and execution of the commercial roadmap, in partnership with the product organisation manage the overall strategic direction, in partnership with internal communications ensure all of the commercial and product team understand the direction we are heading in, ensure optimal benefits are derived form the commercial ops team, manage the governance of the leadership team, and safeguard the CCO’s time by resolving complex organizational issues before they require executive intervention. As a force multiplier, you will bridge the gap between high-level strategy development and daily operational execution, ensuring that our $500M business unit moves with focus, pace, and strategic clarity.

The Airline Technology Context

We operate in a complex, mission-critical ecosystem where the global travel industry is undergoing a generational shift. Our business focuses on providing the technology backbone for airlines—transitioning from legacy Global Distribution Systems (GDS) and commodity-based selling to "Modern Retailing." This involves the implementation of sophisticated Offer and Order management systems (SaaS) and the Sabre Mosaic platform. The CoS must understand this landscape to ensure that our commercial strategies align with the rapid evolution of airline distribution and customer centricity. Additionally armed with this clarity it must be able to lead and coordinate strategic projects from inception to implementation ensuring we build out the capabilities needed for success now and in the future.

Key Responsibilities

1. Strategic Execution & Alignment

  • Strategic Roadmap Stewardship: Manage the long-term execution of the Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy, ensuring that corporate objectives are successfully cascaded into departmental workstreams.
  • "Big Rocks" program Lead: Serve as the primary PMO for critical CCO-mandated initiatives, specifically overseeing the re-engineering of the Deal Approval process, the Commercial Incentive Plan (SIP) simplification, and Product Prioritization frameworks.
  • Corporate Objective Cascade: You will ensure that long-term goals remain the priority amidst shifting market conditions, maintaining a clear line of sight between local sales activity and global strategy.
  • Operational Governance: Identify bottlenecks in internal communication or decision-making and implement systems to fix them, fostering a culture of "focus and pace".
  • Product, commercial operations and communication alignment: Ensure all part supporting the commercial execution with our customers drive in the same direction with minimal internal administrative complexity

2. Sales Operations & Commercial Analytics

  • Sales Pipeline Leadership: Partner with the commercial operations team to ensure a simple and effective global sales pipeline reporting process, ensuring data integrity across all regions to provide a "single source of truth" for our revenue targets.
  • Commercial Performance Governance: Partner with the commercial operations team to drive accountability across the leadership team by ensuring alignment with budget, sales targets, and revenue goals.
  • KPI & OKR Management: Partner with the commercial operations team and leadership to define, communicate, and track progress against Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).
  • Advanced Analytics: Partner with the commercial operations team to utilize CRM architectures and data visualization platforms to drive organizational strategy, providing insights into win/loss ratios, market share, and sales velocity.
  • Intelligence Synthesis: Manage the "End-of-Week" reporting flow, synthesizing regional updates into high-level briefings for the CCO to ensure the Executive Leadership Team (ELT) remains informed of critical deals and market intelligence.

3. Communication & Liaison

  • Delegated Authority: Serve as the CCO’s formal proxy in internal and external forums, possessing the authority to represent the CCO’s position, make binding operational decisions, and provide direction to senior leadership.
  • Meeting Management: Design agendas and facilitate meetings to ensure they are productive, action-oriented, and focused on strategic debate rather than mere reporting.
  • Board & Executive Communications: Oversee the development of all executive-level materials, including presentations and enterprise-wide communications, ensuring they reflect the CCO’s strategic intent.
  • Cross-Functional Mediation: Act as a neutral arbiter to align competing interests between Sales, Product, Marketing, and Finance, ensuring that enterprise-level commercial objectives take precedence over departmental silos.

Required Skills and Qualifications

  • Experience: A minimum of 10–15 years of professional experience in Corporate Strategy, Business Operations, or Management Consulting. A proven track record in a high-level Chief of Staff or COO capacity is essential.
  • Educational Credentials: Bachelor’s degree in business or finance required; MBA or equivalent advanced degree is strongly preferred.
  • Commercial Expertise: Sophisticated understanding of global commercial dynamics, including GTM modeling and customer lifecycle management within the airline technology or SaaS sectors.
  • Analytical Mastery: Advanced capability in utilizing data visualization platforms and CRM architectures (e.g., Salesforce) to drive organizational strategy and sales discipline.
  • Executive Presence: Exceptional emotional intelligence and the ability to influence C-Suite and VP-level stakeholders through diplomatic authority and expert knowledge.

Benefits:

  • Highly competitive compensation package

  • We offer a comprehensive medical, dental and wellness program

  • 25 vacation days annually plus an extra week of vacation from December 27 to 31 every year as year end break globally

  • Formal and informal reward, recognition and acknowledgement programs

  • Lots of fun in a globally set team with a global on-boarding program

  • Local events and celebrations

  • 4 volunteering days annually, to use with your charity of choice

  • High-end IT equipment to support you from day one

  • Ample employee development events, incl. learning platforms / tools

  • Diversity and Inclusion programs worldwide



We will give careful consideration to your application and review your details against the position criteria. You will receive separate notification as your application progresses. Please note that only candidates who meet the minimum criteria for the role will proceed in the selection process.



#LI-Hybrid#LI-PS1