Publicis Sapient is a digital transformation partner helping established organisations get to their future, digitally-enabled state, both in the way they work and the way they serve their customers. We help unlock value through a start-up mindset and modern methods, fusing strategy, consulting and customer experience with agile engineering and problem-solving creativity. United by our core values and our purpose of helping people thrive in the brave pursuit of next, our 20,000+ people in 53 offices around the world combine experience across technology, data sciences, consulting and customer obsession to accelerate our clients’ businesses through designing the products and services their customers truly value

The Head of Travel & Hospitality (T&H) Technology leads engineering and delivery of enterprise scale digital transformation technology programmes across T&H KSA industry clients, driving disruption from within. They are responsible for framing geographically distributed technology groups internally and the technical management of on-site project teams. They will also guide architecture, technical design & development while providing best practice points of view within their area of expertise and be an authority for the latest engineering methods and processes.

The Head of Travel & Hospitality Technology will also lead business development and proposal work, developing client relationships at all levels and deliver compelling presentations to C-level internal and client stakeholders. They will provide leadership and technical direction for multidisciplinary, international teams of 100+ people and play a key role in driving Publicis Sapient core organisational beliefs.

Your Impact

• Single threaded ownership of KSA T&H clients’ engineering outcomes
• Partner with industry leading T&H clients to solve their business problems through digital solutions
• Partner with Publicis Sapient Industry Leadership to develop go to market strategy and appropriate accelerators for the T&H industry
• Help to drive KSA business growth through taking Publicis Sapient wide propositions to the T&H industry
• Play an active role in developing engineering leaders (Director/Senior Director) craft by helping them hone their skills and apply them in the context of client programmes and projects
• Take responsibility for people growth in engineering (e.g. merit/promotion decisions & engineering transformation both internally and with clients)
• Take accountability for KSA T&H engineering delivery (estimates & execution), solution choice, quality and consistency (within the industry and aligned to Publicis Sapient global engineering capabilities)
• Help to build KSA engineering capability including liaising with different CoEs like Cloud & Data to define/review and partner for role expectations, hiring & training
• Build out engineering capacity required for revenue and partner with the engineering office and other functions
• Provide leadership support to client account engineering leads

Your Skills and Experience

Core Skills & Experience

• Seasoned technology leader with a strong background in engineering and consulting roles
• Hands on technical delivery and leadership experience of globally distributed engineering teams of 100+ in size
• Track record of operating at exec board or senior leadership level – e.g. CTO, CIO
• Experience managing delivery budgets (up to 20 million USD or more)
• Excellent client pitching and presentation skills
• Agile delivery experience
• Strong academic background in a relevant discipline
• Fluent English and Arabic speaker

Industry and Engineering Skills & Knowledge

• Industry knowledge across key T&H business sectors such as Aviation, Hospitality & Smart Cities
• Knowledge of key T&H business areas such as:
  • Online selling (internet booking engine, mobile app, online payments, e-ticketing)
  • Travel Marketplaces (Tourism, Hotels, Flights, F&B, Attractions, Events)
  • Product management, pricing and merchandising for travel products
• Knowledge of commerce and marketplace platforms for the travel and hospitality industry
• Knowledge of Travel technology platforms (Central reservation, property management, guest management etc) and products such as Amadeus, Travelport, Oracle, Sabre
• Knowledge of how the latest trends and technologies are influencing the customer journey across the travel & hospitality value chain like Blockchain distribution, Self-Sovereign identity, Metaverse etc 
• A proven track record of delivering enterprise scale engineering transformation projects using contemporary technologies and methodologies such as:
  • Online booking platforms (Off-the-shelf products and Custom implementations)
  • Digital experience platforms (CMS, Search etc)
  • Java, JavaScript
  • DevOps/Automation (CI, CD) for large scale delivery
  • Architecture and design knowledge of Headless approaches, API gateways, Microservices, iPaaS / ETL / ESB, Databases, and Big Data platforms
  • Cloud platform architectures (one or more of Azure, GCP, AWS, OCI)
  • Big Data / Machine learning platforms
  • Quality Engineering
• Flexibility to travel across the Saudi region to deliver our best in class services is essential

• Publicis Sapient operates a Hybrid working policy (part office, part client site, part remote)
• We know the importance of health and wellbeing so offer you extensive retail discount offers and further reimbursement towards activities that contribute to a healthier lifestyle
• We are proud to actively invest in your learning through various learning platforms
• Diversity and inclusion aren't just buzzwords. We offer an inclusive environment through our inspirational business resource groups and work with you to give back to the local community through CSR efforts