Airbnb was born in 2007 when two hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home, and has since grown to over 5 million hosts who have welcomed over 2 billion guest arrivals in almost every country across the globe. Every day, hosts offer unique stays and experiences that make it possible for guests to connect with communities in a more authentic way.
The community you will join
Airbnb is looking for a Strategic Partnerships Lead, Central and Eastern Europe to shape and grow our strategic partnerships across the region.
Reporting to the Country Manager, Central and Eastern Europe, you'll have the opportunity to build what's next - identifying high-impact opportunities, creating partnerships from the ground up, and working across Airbnb's Product, Marketing, Communications, Finance and Global Partnerships teams to bring them to life.
This is a highly visible role for someone who combines commercial instinct, strategic thinking and the ability to turn ambitious ideas into meaningful growth for the business.
The difference you will make
You'll own strategic partnerships and business development across the territory - spotting opportunities, building the commercial case, navigating complex negotiations and taking partnerships from idea to execution.
We're looking for someone who can create rather than inherit - someone comfortable operating without a ready-made playbook and able to build momentum both externally and across a global organisation.
You'll bring:
- A builder mindset - you've created net-new strategic partnerships from the ground up, not simply sold an existing product or managed established accounts.
- Commercial depth - you can build the business case, understand the economics and assess the real value and viability of a partnership.
- Negotiation strength - you've led complex deals, made smart trade-offs and know when to hold the line.
- Influence without authority - you can use data and insight to bring Product, Marketing, Communications and global teams behind an opportunity.
- Greenfield resilience - you're comfortable with ambiguity, long deal cycles and finding a way forward when there isn't an established playbook.
- Strategic perspective - you don't just close individual deals, you understand how each one contributes to the bigger market opportunity and drives measurable growth for the business.
A Typical Day:
- Identifies opportunities for establishing partnerships and business development activities that support our business goals.
- Establishes and maintains partnerships at local level.
- Sources input of needs from all business areas that could possibly be filled or amplified by partners to drive broader country and company goals
- Ensures partnerships and business development activities are coordinated across all business areas.
- Evaluates the financial and strategic benefits of potential partnerships.
- Develop a clear understanding of the competitive landscape for our businesses.
- Build and maintain relationships with potential partners and collaboration opportunities.
- Manages and engages current partnerships in the market.
Your Expertise:
- 10-12 years of experience in strategic partnerships, business development or related field
- Critical:
- Proven track record of structuring, negotiating and executing growth partnerships strategies with measurable commercial impact
- Growth obsessed
- Relationship building and negotiation capabilities with external executive stakeholders
- Strong financial modeling and analytical skills (basic data science skills are a plus; ability to independently assess strategic and economic value of partnerships
- Maintain engagement of current partner ecosystem
- Superpower: able to develop growth strategies focused both on financial gain and product development.
- Excellence in managing partnerships end-to-end, from strategy through execution.
- Deep business acumen to conduct extensive market research and anticipate product and business needs
- German native speaker, English fluent
- Ideal:
- Prior experience in Consulting, Marketing, Finance, or Strategic Partnerships roles.
- Strong strategic and critical thinking skills - ability to connect dots and proactively develop proposals and solutions
- Strong ability to build relationships and influence senior internal stakeholders across functions; experience operating effectively within a global matrix organization strongly preferred.
- Strong project management and organization skills
- Comfortable operating in a highly dynamic, cross-functional environment; able to navigate ambiguity and evolving priorities with persistence, sound judgment and a solutions-oriented mindset.
- Exercises strong judgment and discretion when representing the Country Manager, advancing priorities with influence rather than authority.
Our Commitment To Inclusion & Belonging:
Airbnb is committed to working with the broadest talent pool possible. We believe diverse ideas foster innovation and engagement, and allow us to attract creatively-led people, and to develop the best products, services and solutions. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply.
