Business Development Director - Travel

Join us as a Business Development Director – Travel (Payments), where you will play a key role in driving sustainable commercial growth across our Hospitality & Leisure portfolio. You will focus on expanding our presence within the travel sector by leveraging your payments expertise and proven ability to acquire new business, helping to shape the future direction of our travel payments strategy.

You will operate as a senior business development leader, responsible for identifying, targeting, and securing new opportunities within the travel industry. Partnering closely with internal stakeholders across Sales, Product, and Strategy, you will deliver commercially compelling payment solutions, build effective client relationships, and ensure alignment with broader business objectives and growth ambitions. This is a highly commercial, externally facing role with a clear emphasis on market expansion and revenue generation.

To be successful in this role you will have:

• Proven experience within the payments industry (financial services, merchant acquiring, payment gateways, POS solutions, or payments software), with a solid understanding of the ecosystem and value chain
• A demonstrated record of acquiring new business, winning clients and consistently delivering against or exceeding sales targets
• Extensive experience within the travel sector, including a well-established network and deep understanding of industry dynamics and client needs
• Excellent client communication and negotiation skills, with the ability to build and manage senior stakeholder relationships
• Well-developed commercial acumen, with the ability to develop and execute growth strategies informed by market insight
• Experience working collaboratively across internal teams to deliver client-focused solutions
• Ability to manage pipelines, proposals, and CRM reporting effectively

Desirable skills include:

• Experience in sales reporting, performance tracking, and pipeline analysis
• Established network across travel, hospitality, or related sectors (e.g. gaming)
• Excellent presentation skills, with the ability to influence and engage senior stakeholders
• Experience monitoring customer satisfaction and actively resolving issues
• Ability to analyse market trends and client feedback to drive continuous improvement and inform strategy

You may be assessed on the key critical skills relevant for success in role, such as risk and controls, business acumen, strategic thinking, change and transformation, and communication, as well as job‑specific technical expertise.

This role is located in London.

Purpose of the role

To manage sales and set the strategic direction. Provide support to the bank's senior management team, and to manage sales risk across the organisation. 

Accountabilities

• Development of strategic direction for sales, including the implementation of up to date methodologies and processes.
• Management of sales, including oversight of colleagues and their performance, implementation of departmental goals and objectives, oversight of department efficiency and effectiveness.  .
• Relationship management of sales stakeholders, including identifying relevant stakeholders, and maintenance of the quality of external third party services.
• Development and implementation of policies and procedures for sales.
• Management of sales risk, including identification of potential risks, development of strategies to mitigate those risks, and maintenance of alignment between the bank’s sales and compliance functions.  .
• Monitoring the financial performance of sales department, including revenue, profitability, and cost control.
• Conducting thorough market research to understand market trends, competitive landscape, and regulatory changes to identify market opportunities.

Vice President Expectations

• To contribute or set strategy, drive requirements and make recommendations for change. Plan resources, budgets, and policies; manage and maintain policies/ processes; deliver continuous improvements and escalate breaches of policies/procedures..
• If managing a team, they define jobs and responsibilities, planning for the department’s future needs and operations, counselling employees on performance and contributing to employee pay decisions/changes. They may also lead a number of specialists to influence the operations of a department, in alignment with strategic as well as tactical priorities, while balancing short and long term goals and ensuring that budgets and schedules meet corporate requirements..
• If the position has leadership responsibilities, People Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others..
• OR for an individual contributor, they will be a subject matter expert within own discipline and will guide technical direction. They will lead collaborative, multi-year assignments and guide team members through structured assignments, identify the need for the inclusion of other areas of specialisation to complete assignments. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions..
• Advise key stakeholders, including functional leadership teams and senior management on functional and cross functional areas of impact and alignment.
• Manage and mitigate risks through assessment, in support of the control and governance agenda.
• Demonstrate leadership and accountability for managing risk and strengthening controls in relation to the work your team does.
• Demonstrate comprehensive understanding of the organisation functions to contribute to achieving the goals of the business.
• Collaborate with other areas of work, for business aligned support areas to keep up to speed with business activity and the business strategies.
• Create solutions based on sophisticated analytical thought comparing and selecting complex alternatives. In-depth analysis with interpretative thinking will be required to define problems and develop innovative solutions.
• Adopt and include the outcomes of extensive research in problem solving processes.
• Seek out, build and maintain trusting relationships and partnerships with internal and external stakeholders in order to accomplish key business objectives, using influencing and negotiating skills to achieve outcomes.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.