Head of Marketplace & Category Growth

The Tour Guy; Roma; On-site; EUR 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Meal vouchers (€7 per day)

Job summary

The Tour Guy is seeking a senior leader to drive Account Management and marketplace strategy across Europe, including Italy. You will manage a team of account managers, set market priorities, and align partner growth with data-driven category plans.

You will collaborate with Analytics, Search, Product, Merchandising and Operations to optimize the search-to-book funnel, improve listings, and negotiate supplier terms to maximize GMV and revenue.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in marketplace, OTA, travel or multi-supplier digital business.
• 3+ years leading four+ direct reports (Account Managers, trip marketers, Category Managers, Partner Managers).
• Proven track record owning GMV or revenue, conversions, availability, and margin.
• Experience negotiating supplier terms using product-level data to optimize catalog.
• Built, scaled a team and driven revenue growth across a multi-supplier platform.

Responsibilities

• Lead and manage the Account Management team against revenue, partner, and execution targets.
• Set market and category ownership, targets, and weekly/monthly rhythms.
• Own department performance across GMV, revenue, partner growth, and catalogue productivity.
• Coach reps to their numbers and manage underperformance.
• Own the search-to-booking funnel and improve conversion across category pages.

Skills

Leadership & People Management

Strategy & Marketplace

Analytical thinking

Communication

Negotiation

Tools

Algolia Analytics

Google Analytics 4

Google Search Console

Excel/Sheets

Job description

We are The Tour Guy, provider of incredible tours and authentic experiences for English-speaking travelers across Europe and the U.S.A. Our mission is to help others make more out of life through experiencing destinations, culture, and learning.

With loyalty to the customer, we follow the Golden Rule of travel: treat vacations like you want yours treated. Our team is dedicated to creating unique, once-in-a-lifetime tours, activities, and experiences — from Vatican tours to authentic cooking classes in Paris and everything in between.

The Candidate

A charismatic leader that understands that each user has intent defined by a search. Our job is to match that intent to a product and provide the exact visual they imagined in their head.

We need to do that with tens of thousands of products.

Responsibilities

• Lead and manage the Account Management team against clear revenue, partner, and execution targets.
• Set market and category ownership, individual targets, and weekly and monthly operating rhythms.
• Own department performance across GMV, revenue, partner growth, category coverage, and catalogue productivity.
• Coach reps to their numbers and manage underperformance.

Marketplace & Category Strategy

• Own the product mix and category coverage across European trip markets.
• Use search demand, bookings, conversion, availability, and market data to set quarterly supply and category priorities.
• Partner with Analytics, Search, Product, Merchandising, and Product Operations so high-intent searches lead to credible, available, bookable products.
• Own the search-to-booking funnel: drive down zero-result and no-click searches and lift product- and category-page conversion.
• Merchandising quality standard: ensure partner listings (photos, descriptions, reviews, availability) are good enough to convert next to owned product.

Partner & Commercial Growth

• Direct supplier acquisition in priority markets and categories and manage key partner relationships.
• Negotiate commission, pricing, availability, cancellation terms, service levels, and exclusivity where relevant.
• Review partner and product performance and decide what to grow, improve, suppress, replace, or remove.

Desired Experience:

• 7+ years working in a marketplace, OTA, e-commerce, travel, hospitality, ticketing, or another multi-supplier digital business.
• 3+ years managing at least four Account Managers, trip marketers, Category Managers, Partner Managers, or similar direct reports.
• Direct ownership of commercial KPIs including GMV or revenue, conversion, availability, margin, cancellations, and partner retention.
• Direct experience negotiating supplier terms and using product-level data to add, improve, suppress, replace, or remove products.
• Proven record scaling a revenue line, took GMV/bookings from X to Y and can name the levers
• Built, scaled a team from scratch

Desired Skills:

• Excel or Google Sheets: pivot tables, XLOOKUP/VLOOKUP, and SUMIFS.
• Google Analytics 4: find product and category-page conversion, build basic funnels, and identify drop-off points.
• Onsite search analytics (Algolia Analytics or similar): review top queries, zero-result and no-click searches, click-through rate, and search-to-booking conversion.
• Google Search Console: analyse queries, impressions, clicks, click-through rate, and average position.
• Commercial/unit-economics literacy: net vs gross rate, OTA take rates, markup, cancellation and margin impact.

What we offer:

• Permanent Contract
• Meal vouchers (€7 per day) in accordance with internal company policy

At The Tour Guy we offer equal opportunities. We are committed to treat all candidates equally based on their skills, achievements and experience regardless of their race, nationality, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other classification protected by law.