Strategy and Operations Manager - HTS Japan

About the job

As an Account Manager, you will be the main relationship owner with our strategic partner in Japan. You will work at the intersection of the business, customer success, operations, and data. This team owns a full service travel offering (selling flights, hotels, rental cars and packages) for our marquee B2B partner in Japan. A successful Account Manager for this team must be ambitious, highly competent, and excited to dig into product data, grow the partnership, and roll up their sleeves to deliver outcomes for our partner. This Account Manager must also be able to work extremely well within a traditional Japanese business culture.

This role operates across a much broader scope than a traditional Account Managers. As such, we would expect someone to join us that:

Can make decisions for the team with ambiguity/little direction; they will be the sole person responsible for ensuring our partnership is successful (and defining what that success looks like).Is able to use data/analysis to inform decision making and strategy; we’re going to want to run a lot of experiments, and we’re going to need someone who can put together clear business cases that illustrate and prioritize numerous opportunities.

Has the ability to influence a partner to make product and business decisions that benefit our business and our customers.

Has the ability and willingness to run analyses, solve for operational gaps and create material for our partner without relying on others.

What would your day-to-day look like:

• Build and maintain reporting for the financial and product performance of the partnership; report on performance to internal and external stakeholders
• Dive deep on performance and operational data to stay ahead of product trends and see around corners
• Craft persuasive business cases that will grow revenue and make compelling pitches to our partner that persuade them to buy into these ideas.
• Work with customer service to ensure service quality is best-in-breed and identify operational and product improvements to maintain this
• Identify commercial opportunities to improve our economics and create compelling propositions to customers, including leading negotiations with travel companies
• Build and maintain measures of price competitiveness against other travel companies in Japan
• Arrange and produce content for monthly business reviews with the client

An ideal candidate has:

• Has the ability to work in a start-up environment AND a traditional Japanese business environment
• Enjoys untangling complex problems and diving deep into data in a methodical manner
• Makes decisions with quantitative and qualitative data and is comfortable making decisions without absolute certainty
• Exhibits a detail-oriented approach to problem-solving
• Can clearly explain their thinking verbally and through writing to help drive clarity, uncover new questions, and get to a resolution working both independently and with various team members or stakeholders
• Takes ownership and moves quickly while exhibiting good judgment
• Shows technical depth that allows them to communicate with, understand, and earn the respect of world-class engineers and data scientists
• Has a strong focus on doing what is right for the customer and the company without ego
• Can speak to their track record of being proactive and persuading colleagues by constructing a compelling narrative both in-person and in-writing
• Is highly adaptive and flexible to a changing environment and absorbs the greater context of organizational goals and appropriately weighs this as an input into their roadmap
• Has experience with consumer marketplaces, as a plus

Perks of working with us:

• Well-funded and proven startup with large ambitions, competitive salary, and the upsides of a pre-IPO equity package
• Quarterly performance bonus
• Unlimited PTO
• Flexport All Access Pass OR Work-from-home stipend
• Entrepreneurial culture where pushing limits and taking risks is everyday business
• Open communication with management and company leadership
• Small, dynamic teams = massive impact
• New benefits to come soon as we're opening up full employment & PEO!

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More about Hopper

At Hopper, we are on a mission to become the leading travel platform globally – powering Hopper’s mobile app, website and our B2B business, HTS (Hopper Technology Solutions). By leveraging massive amounts of data and advanced machine learning algorithms, Hopper combines its world-class travel agency offering with proprietary fintech products to bring transparency, flexibility and savings to travelers globally. We have developed several unique fintech solutions that address everything from pricing volatility to trip disruptions – helping people travel better and save more on their trips.

The Hopper platform serves hundreds of millions of travelers globally and continues to capture market share around the world. Ranked the third largest online travel agency in North America, the Hopper app has been downloaded over 120 million times and has become largely popular among younger travelers – with 70% of its users being Gen Z and millennials.

While everyone knows us as the Gen Z and Millennial travel app, Hopper has evolved to become much more than that. In recent years, we’ve grown into a global travel agency and travel fintech provider that powers some of the world’s largest brands.

Through HTS, our B2B division, the company supercharges its partners’ direct channels by integrating our fintech products on their sites or powering end-to-end travel portals. Today, our partners include leading travel brands like Capital One, Nubank, Air Canada and many more.

Here are just a few stats that demonstrate the company’s recent growth:

Hopper sells billion worth of travel and travel fintech every year. In 2023, over 1.3 billion trips were planned through the Hopper app and our HTS partnerships. 

Our fintech products – including Price Freeze, Flexibility for Any Reason and Flight Disruption Assistance – have exceptionally strong CSAT because the terms are always clear, and customers receive instant, no-questions-asked resolutions. 

Almost 30% of our app customers purchase at least one fintech product when making a booking; and consumers are 1.6x more likely to repurchase if they add fintech to their booking vs if they booked just travel. 

Given the success of its fintech products, Hopper launched a B2B initiative, HTS (Hopper Technology Solutions), which represents more than 50% of the business.

 Through HTS, any travel provider (airlines, hotels, banks, travel agencies, etc.) can integrate and seamlessly distribute Hopper’s fintech or travel inventory on their direct channels. As its first HTS partnership, the company partnered with Capital One to co-develop Capital One Travel, a new travel portal designed specifically for cardholders. Other HTS partners include Air Canada, Uber, CommBank, Nubank, Flair Airlines with many more in the pipeline. 

Featured in Apple’s Best of the App Store list of Essential Travel Apps in 2023 and recognized by the likes of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, Hopper has been downloaded over 120 million times and continues to have millions of new installs each month. Hopper is now the #3 largest online travel agency in North America and 70% of our app customers are Gen-Z and millennials travelers.

Hopper has raised over $750 million USD of private capital and is backed by some of the largest institutional investors and banks in the world. Hopper is primed to continue its acceleration as the world’s fastest-growing mobile-first travel marketplace. 

Come take off with us!