Manager - Security Intelligence & Response

Role Description:

Job Summary:

The GSR Manager - Safety & Security Response is a crucial role in the front line defense of Booking.com in protection of, primarily, their people and assets and where needed also an important role in protecting customers and partners from people/physical security threats. The Regional Security Intelligence & Response (RSIR) team managed by this position falls within the wider Global Security Intelligence & Response Capability Area (CA) of Group Security & Resilience (GSR). The CA delivers regional and global people/physical security intelligence and response services through three distinct teams, split between Norwalk, Amsterdam, Bucharest, and Singapore.

The team is split along regional lines (APAC, EMEA & Americas) with overlapping global responsibilities in key areas; the manager will cover a global remit of responsibilities. The team’s core responsibilities are geopolitical intelligence collection and analysis, as well as people/physical security incident/crisis response.

The Manager will lead a team responsible for monitoring, analyzing, and reporting on people/physical security threats and geopolitical developments using open-source tools and structured intelligence methodologies, acting as both a manager and a highly knowledgeable SME. In addition to overseeing the governance, quality, timeliness, and relevance of the team’s intelligence output, contributing to such output as required, the Manager will work in close partnership with senior leadership to shape strategic roadmaps, define objectives, and ensure deliverables are aligned with regional and global business priorities. Such deliverables will also go beyond the internal service unit responsibilities of the S&F department, including working with Product teams as an SME advisor on products that will directly impact, and be used by, Booking.com customers. To do this, the Manager will draw upon their knowledge of people/physical security, geopolitical, and reputational risks to make balanced recommendations with regional political and cultural nuance.

The Manager will provide clear, tactical guidance, drawing upon their subject matter expertise on geopolitics, international affairs and people/physical incident response, to ensure day-to-day operations and short-term goals are well understood and executed across the team. In security response operations, the Manager will oversee team members and escalate the resolution of complex or high-impact people/physical security threat incidents, ensuring robust coordination, stakeholder communication, and documentation across the full incident lifecycle. When required, they will also directly engage in OSINT investigations, using their own technical expertise to advise team members, and conduct solo, high risk investigations, subsequently drawing upon available evidence, stakeholder input, and information to make operational security decisions. They will also represent the team, and wider CA, in crisis management scenarios, delivering concise briefings requiring geopolitical and people/physical security incident response expertise — both verbal and written — to crisis management bodies and senior leadership. The Manager will be responsible for conducting after action reviews and reports across multiple teams inside and outside of Security & Fraud following high impact incidents on employee physical security, in addition to subsequently driving agreed upon actions and deliverables.

Strategically, the Manager will also play a key role in shaping the data capture systems and structures of the team and wider CA, by leveraging subject matter expertise combined with business acumen to ensure that they are effectively capturing relevant datapoints in order to drive and improve business risk reduction efforts and support commercial operations.

A key focus of the role is fostering an inclusive, high-performing team culture through active coaching, structured development, and recognition of talent. The Manager will also ensure that team workflows, tooling, and outputs are continuously optimized in line with security industry best practices, and will take a leading role in managing people/physical and geopolitical intelligence vendor relationships, including driving RFPs and procurement decisions. This will require a solid understanding of the security, especially intelligence, vendor landscape, and maintaining awareness of trends among these vendors related to new technologies that can foster efficiencies among the team’s work. The role demands strong leadership acumen, operational maturity, and a forward-looking mindset, coupled with the ability to think tactically, communicate clearly under pressure, and help shape the evolution of a critical business-enabling capability.

Key Responsibilities:

Security Response

• Oversee and provide guidance on the resolution of complex or high-priority people/physical security incidents involving employees, executives, or corporate assets, ensuring timely and appropriate coordination across internal stakeholders and advising with subject matter expertise as applicable and is required to work outside office hours.
• Act as a senior escalation point for physical security and threat response, ensuring decisions are informed by internal protocols, legal considerations, and business impact.
• Guide and approve enforcement actions related to serious misconduct or people/physical threats when required, including account suspensions or terminations of high profile partners, while ensuring due diligence and cross-functional alignment outside of Security & Fraud.
• Guide analysts in, and conduct, OSINT investigations related to High/Critical level threat cases, utilising operational expertise in this space.
• Ensure operational readiness and capability for people/physical security incidents on a global basis through oversight of incident response protocols, playbooks, and Standard Operating Procedures; lead debriefs and implement lessons learned to improve future responses and develop new/revised governance documentation as required.
• Collaborate closely with Regional Security Managers, Real Estate, and Corporate Security to mitigate physical risks to office locations and employee travel, and ensure global consistency in execution, catering for regional nuance where the local political, security, business or cultural landscape necessitates.
• Provide cover for the CAL in certain operational responses, including during crises and major incidents, where coordination between third party assistance providers and internal teams is required for complex ground moves and/or other assistance operations.

Strategic Intelligence

• Direct the team’s intelligence strategy as it relates to both geopolitical and targeted physical threats, and output, ensuring insights are timely, business-relevant, and support both strategic planning and operational resilience across multiple business end users with different requirements
• Contribute to, and review, strategic reports and anticipate geopolitical or people/physical security-related risks that may impact the company’s global and/or regional operations, advising analysts on potential report topics and ensuring maximum impact, clarity, audience centricity, and quality of deliverable(s)
• Assess and track data on the business impact and relevance of written geopolitical and/or people/physical threat assessments as part of a cycle of continuous improvement
• Ensure the development of regionalised people/physical and geopolitical intelligence collection thresholds and sources through dedicated team of regional analysts
• Build and maintain mid-senior level external networks of other geopolitical security risk analysts with peer companies, public sector entities, and NGOs to enable early warning, situational awareness, and best practice/knowledge exchanges.
• Provide executive briefings and written assessments on geopolitical and/or people/physical issues during major incidents/crises or high-impact developments, aligning recommendations with business risk tolerance and decision-making frameworks.
• Contribute to, and continuously improve, internal forums of cross-team intelligence ‘fusion cells’ on complex issues, acting as global subject matter expert on geopolitical and people/physical security threats, driving common taxonomy, template creation and reporting thresholds for ease of internal consumption.
• Conduct reviews of OSINT investigations carried out, and storage of any sensitive data, in order to ensure legal obligations (e.g. GDPR) are met

Team Management & Leadership

• Lead the design and implementation of annual plans and strategic roadmaps for the team, based on business needs and priorities, and the complex and evolving global geopolitical security and people/physical threat landscape to minimise risk and maximise opportunity based on these. Track and report against these with meaningful metrics
• Drive continuous improvement for the team through optimizing for cost and operational excellence, using in-depth knowledge of the people/physical security and intelligence vendor landscape in pursuit of cost-efficient and effective day-to-day operations
• Ensure workflows, methodologies, and outputs remain aligned with security industry best practices and company standards; lead reviews and process audits on subject matter relevant areas to enhance quality, efficiency, and consistency
• Use subject matter expertise in people/physical security threat management and geopolitical analysis to drive collaboration between the team and customer-facing Engineering, Product and Marketplace teams to ensure shared tools and products deliver measurable business value
• Create the working environment that attracts, engages, develops and retains your people to their full potential including ensuring all team members are supported in their growth, through constant feedback, coaching and mentoring programs, including making use of relevant subject matter specific courses and external forums in order to maximise employee development in line with industry best practice
• Coaching your team(s) on and role model the Booking values on Think Customer First, Own It, Learn Forever, Succeed Together, and Do the Right Thing; create a psychologically safe environment for team members to do their best work; conduct performance management and feedback delivery with proven results across cultures and team members

Communications & Stakeholder management

• Represent the team in high-level cross-functional forums and strategy sessions, using subject matter expertise to translate technical or situational briefings or tool requirements into clear, actionable messaging for senior stakeholders
• Provide verbal and written briefings on geopolitical and employee physical security issues to executive leadership and regional teams during major incident/ crisis scenarios, ensuring communication is concise, relevant, and impact-oriented
• Act as the right hand and back up to CAL in major incident/crisis response, engaging with high level stakeholders and making decisions on behalf of the Group Security & Resilience team as required
• Ensure effective internal messaging across the team, helping translate strategic goals into clear tactical subject-matter relevant direction and individual accountability
• Champion cross-functional collaboration with teams such as Trust & Safety, BTI, Investigations, Public Relations, and Legal to drive alignment on shared goals and ensure the business benefits from these diverse areas of individual expertise as part of its operations
• Lead the creation of internal communication materials, including subject matter input to critical awareness campaigns (such as emergency mass communications) content for onboarding of new joiners, or people/physical incident response training and procedure materials
• Maintain a strong understanding of the relevant regulatory and compliance implications related to data handling with regard to POI investigations and other people/physical threat management practices and ensure the team’s work remains fully compliant with global data protection frameworks through robust governance materials and testing frameworks
• Engage, where required, in diplomatic conflict resolution and problem solving within teams, both those directly managed and wider teams, especially in managing high workloads and ensuring efficient prioritisation during times of major incidents and crises

Holdings

• Apply deep subject matter knowledge of people/physical security risks and geopolitical impacts on business operations to refine/develop appropriate regional intelligence and people/physical security response services in a sustainable and efficient manner in order to safeguard brand employees and business operations in a consistent manner across BHI brands
• Able to deputise for CAL and represent Booking.com Security at Group level as an SME on geopolitical and people/physical security risks

Knowledge and skills:

Education & Experience

• Level of Knowledge: Advanced Knowledge (5 - 8 years)
• Years of Experience: 5 - 8 years
• Education: Bachelor degree in International Relations / political Science / Security Studies / War Studies or similar (minimum); Master degree preferred.

Benefits & Perks - Global Impact, Personal Relevance:

Booking.com’s Total Rewards Philosophy is not only about compensation but also about benefits. We offer a competitive compensation and benefits package, as well unique-to-Booking.com benefits which include:

• Annual paid time off and generous paid leave scheme including: parent, grandparent, bereavement, and care leave
• Hybrid working including flexible working arrangements, and up to 20 days per year working from abroad (home country)
• Industry leading product discounts - up to 1400 per year - for yourself, including automatic Genius Level 3 status and Booking.com wallet credit

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) at Booking.com:

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion have been a core part of our company culture since day one. This ongoing journey starts with our very own employees, who represent over 140 nationalities and a wide range of ethnic and social backgrounds, genders and sexual orientations.

Take it from our Chief People Officer, Paulo Pisano: “At Booking.com, the diversity of our people doesn’t just build an outstanding workplace, it also creates a better and more inclusive travel experience for everyone. Inclusion is at the heart of everything we do. It’s a place where you can make your mark and have a real impact in travel and tech.”

We ensure that colleagues with disabilities are provided the adjustments and tools they need to participate in the job application and interview process, to perform crucial job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment.

Application Process:

• Let’s go places together: How we Hire
• This role does not come with relocation assistance.

Booking.com is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status. We strive to move well beyond traditional equal opportunity and work to create an environment that allows everyone to thrive.

Pre-Employment Screening

If your application is successful, your personal data may be used for a pre-employment screening check by a third party as permitted by applicable law. Depending on the vacancy and applicable law, a pre-employment screening may include employment history, education and other information (such as media information) that may be necessary for determining your qualifications and suitability for the position.