Managing Director, Industry Standards and Best Practices

About The Role:

It's a great time to join us at Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC)! ARC accelerates the growth of global air travel by delivering forward-looking travel data, flexible distribution services and other innovative industry solutions. We are a leading travel intelligence company with the world’s largest, most comprehensive global airline ticket dataset, including more than 15 billion passenger flights. By working here, you can contribute to solutions and expertise that strengthen economies and enrich lives. We think big, embrace challenges and explore new ideas to lead the way for the travel industry.

ARC is looking for a new Managing Director, Industry Standards and Best Practices to join the team! As a Managing Director you will have a strong understanding of the travel data and distribution landscape and to bring diverse industry stakeholders together to create and align on standards, guiding principles and best practices. You will form and lead cross-functional groups to build alignment on data and distribution standards, principles, and champion the adoption of best practices. You will bring scale and efficiency to how airlines, agencies and other industry stakeholders work together. You will lead the creation and on-going engagement of cross-functional customer and interested-party working groups, overseeing the formulation, adoption, and upkeep of common industry frameworks to support the advancement of ARC’s data and distribution products and services in alignment with airline and agency strategies. You will foster collaboration with a wide array of stakeholders, including customers, ARC product and customer-facing teams, experts, industry committees and pertinent industry organizations to in pursuit of these objectives and customer adoption of common operating practices, ensuring their continual relevance. You will make certain the appropriate ARC stakeholders are represented in existing industry standards forums and working groups. You will establish the processes to create and maintain comprehensive documentation, encompassing technical specifications, best practices, and compliance guidelines. You will communicate with internal and external stakeholders, including any changes/updates and compliance prerequisites through customer communications and training programs, reporting, presentations, and active engagement in industry forums. You will partner with product and legal teams to ensure industry documentation and agreements are updated. You will lead ARC’s customer training program, developing a commercial strategy for this function. You will ensure all stakeholders are well-versed in the most recent standards, operating principles and best practices and conscientiously adhere to them. Industry and customer engagement and collaboration is a key component of this role. Entrusted with identifying working groups that ARC should participate in and identifying the appropriate representative(s) in each. You will formulate long-term strategies designed to enable ARC to adapt its standards and operating principles, as well as refining best practices, ensure our products and services maintain their competitive edge and continue to create value for ARC’s customers. You will identify risks and commercial impacts that arise from non-compliance with established standards, the development of contingency plans, and the formulation of effective risk assessment strategies when necessary.

What You'll Get to Do:

• Develop the vision for ARC as a standards-setting organization. Lead the development of strategies that result in ARC being a credible and trusted industry partner who develops and shares best practices for each target audience. Develop compelling narratives that position ARC as a standards-setting leader and trusted source of best practices. Establish a governance process supporting ARC’s Data and Distribution standards and principles aligned with the business needs of airlines and their partners.
• Bring together, facilitate and manage a large and diverse stakeholder community to conduct industry standard setting activities. Create and assume responsibility for a portfolio of standards, best practices and training related to airline data, distribution, offers and order management. Continually validate that standards meet customer needs for existing products/services and robust customer training is incorporated into the product/service development and enhancement process.
• Contribute subject matter expertise to support the development of industry standards and the identification and sharing of best practices. Coordinate activities to support training development and delivery. Maintain a "single source of truth" to promote consistent definitions and guidelines across the industry.
• Serve as one of ARC’s public facing leaders, communicate ARC’s strategy, value, and industry leadership to external stakeholders. This may include industry speaking engagements, press interviews, and customer meetings support. Contribute to ARC’s brand strategy to showcase ARC’s capabilities as a forward-looking thought leader and company driving industry innovation, data and distribution standards.
• Lead the development and management of strategic standards and best practice-related relationships with key individuals from customers, partners, and industry groups. Support colleagues in initiatives that advance the commercial objectives of their portfolio. Collaborate with teams and groups responsible for industry engagement, implementation, and adoption of operating principles and best practices with efficient stakeholder management of ARC participating airlines, agencies and system providers. Engage and maintain productive relationships with other airline industry organizations including IATA, ATPCO, A4A, and SITA, while bringing increased value to the distribution ecosystem.
• Manage day-to-day standards, guidelines, and best practices development activities across various teams. Develop and lead working groups and councils, logistics, develop agendas, facilitate meetings, and document outcomes while ensuring compliance is always maintained. Continually evaluate and make recommendations on the regulatory, compliance, risk and legal challenges for established and considered standards. Lead matrixed teams to support objectives.

You'll Bring These Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in business or technical field; advanced degree and/or recognized qualification in Standards preferred. Equivalent experience considered.
• 7+ years’ experience in the travel industry and/or consulting. Air-travel experience preferred.
• Strong communication and presentation skills with the ability to communicate effectively across multiple levels of the organization and internal/external stakeholders.
• Proven ability to lead individuals and cross-functional teams.
• Proven stakeholder management and negotiation skills.
• Ability to engage customers and network with counterparts throughout the industry.
• Ability to articulate ARC’s position in the industry, data product strategy and business value to airlines and their partners.
• Ability to lead the development of communications and training content that drives adoption and adherence to standards and best practices.
• Experience in design and execution of transformation programs and change management.
• Experience with complex governance processes. Standards facilitation and development.
• Product strategy and product management experience.

What We Can Offer You:

• Joining ARC means joining a team that is motivated, diverse, creative, collaborative and solutions-oriented. We think big, embrace challenges, and explore new ideas to lead the way for the travel industry.
• Our employees value the hands-on learning and professional development opportunities that allow them to expand their skills and grow their career in new, dynamic ways.
• ARC offers WorkFlex . WorkFlex is ARC’s new work model, allowing employees in eligible roles to work virtually without set days in the office. ARC employees can work from the office, at home, or any combination of the two. There will be times when it is important to gather in-person and WorkFlex employees will be expected to come into the office or another location, when needed.
• We offer a highly competitive, comprehensive benefits package so you can worry less and focus on what truly matters.
• By joining ARC, you will partner with top minds in the industry as we use data and technology to innovate how the world travels.

EOE M/F/D/V Females and Minorities