Senior Account Manager - UK & Europe Sales

Job Details

Salary: Competitive

Hours: 37.5hrs

Location: The VHQ, Crawley (1-2 days a week in the office)

Contract: Permanent

Closing Date: Sunday 19th September 2021

Many of our staff at Virgin work flexibly and in many different ways, different core hours or remote working. Please talk to us at your application or interview stage about the flexibility you need. We can't promise to give you exactly what you want, but we are happy to explore what's possible for the role.

In a nutshell

At Virgin Atlantic, we’re just as passionate as we’ve always been about becoming the most loved travel company. One thing we know for sure – this year has shown that when we combine our brand with the power of amazing people, we make something truly magical.

Virgin Atlantic is proudly flying, creating the same fabulous flight experience we’re famous for, and we’re busily laying the foundations for a profitable future. We know that the right people are key to creating success – so we’re looking for someone brilliant to join our Sales Team and help us achieve our vision. Perhaps that’s you? We’d love to find out.

Our Senior Account Manager is accountable for achievement of the portfolio revenue target, whilst maximising price strategy, commercial dealing, and marketing plans in support of objectives. This role will manage & implement projects and processes to drive continuous performance improvement and use data analysis to facilitate smart decision making.
 

Day to day

As Senior Account manager you will be responsible for:

Revenue Generation | Protection within specific trade portfolio:
• Create, own and manage account plans, driving Virgin Atlantic (VS) and Joint Venture (JV) revenue across managed and unmanaged business within the Travel Management Company channel.
• Negotiate annual agreements with aim to reduce cost of sale whilst improving JV share and revenue.
• Build strong relationships across trade portfolio including senior leadership, supplier relations, account management and operations departments – be visible representative of Virgin Atlantic

Sales Processes & Projects:
• Optimise sales processes and tools including CRM – focus on client engagement and sales utilisation.
• Develop strong relations with JV partners and align approach to negotiations – lead discussions.
• Represent trade sales on internal projects

Budget Performance:
• Portfolio revenue results, achieve budget, including minimisation of cost of sale and discounting
• Route and price realisation focus and prioritisation
• Regular communication of progress and performance to Head of Sales channel
• Plan and manage Cost budget in line with business requirements.

Sales Insight and Strategy:
• Support Channel HO and HO Business Development in sales & distribution strategy providing thought leadership and market insight.
• Represent Virgin Atlantic in market, participating in industry panels and active membership of trade bodies.
 

About you

Are you a fantastic negotiator? Able to build and maintain excellent relationships with both internal and external stakeholders.

In addition to the above, we’re looking for our successful candidate to demonstrate the following:

• Significant experience in a sales or client based commercial function (preferrable travel industry)
• Proven analysis led decision-making.
• Excellent negotiator with proven historical results, leading complex, multiparty/international bid processes
• Resource and time management and planning. Project experience preferred.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills - able to make clear and concise presentations to management and external organisations, including large audience presentation experience
• Creation and execution of successful segment strategy within a sales organisation (preferably travel industry)
• Demonstrate the ability to manage multiple priorities under tight deadlines.
• Adept at identifying problems and finding solutions in creative ways
• Excellent interpersonal skills

If this sounds like you, and you would like to be on this exciting journey with us, we would love to hear from you!

Be yourself – Our differences make us stronger

Virgin Atlantic are committed equal opportunities employers and positively encourage applications from suitably qualified and eligible applicants regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion or belief, marital status, pregnancy and maternity. Diversity brings strength which is why we strive to provide an inclusive environment where individuality is celebrated, and we can ignite the potential of our forward-thinking mix of people.

Please be aware as part of our recruitment process we may look to use a variety of resourcing tools to help us understand your skills and experience in relation to the role you have applied for. These may include application questions, video interviews or online testing. Please feel free to contact us at recruitment@fly.virgin.com if there are any reasonable adjustments to our process that you would like us to consider, for example use of hearing loops, sign language interpreter etc. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if there are any issues preventing you from being at your best during your application or assessment process. Any issues raised after your assessment is completed or once a decision has been made will be too late for us to consider within our process.

You'll be assessed against our values for a selection of your interview process, learn more about them here: Our Values