Role Introduction
The Dining Commercial and Value Manager sits under the Customer Experience and Design Department, mainly responsible for leading the commercial planning and value optimization function for Dining and Hospitality, ensuring robust budgeting, forecasting and commercial modelling across the global catering network and in support of product development and planning. You will be responsible for building and maintaining the financial models, cost forecasts and analytical tools that enable Dining and Hospitality to manage product, food and operational budgets effectively. You will also be responsible for identifying opportunities to maximize value from Dining and Hospitality spend and ensuring operational robustness and maintaining Cathay’s service standard.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead a Dining Commercial Value team in the development and coordination of the Dining & Hospitality budgeting process, consolidating inputs from all teams to build the overall budget framework, providing detailed visibility of both operational cost and macro cost-to-serve metrics
- Develop and maintain forecasting models to track actual spend against budgets across product, food, beverages, dry stores and operational catering costs; and produce multi-currency financial forecasts and analysis reflecting global station spend and supplier pricing structures and highlighting outliers for additional focus
- Provide commercial modelling and scenario analysis to support decision-making across Dining and Hospitality; support Culinary Design in analyzing the financial impact of menu specifications, ingredient changes and menu cycle adjustments; and support Dining Performance in modelling operational cost impacts related to supplier performance, station operations and contract structures
- Build and maintain cost modelling tools to evaluate catering cost structures, supplier pricing proposals and commercial scenarios; and provide commercial modelling support for supplier negotiations, including the Cathay Dining (CDI) commercial agreement currently and in the future and providing information to support robust trade-offs by the business area owners
- Track overall Dining and Hospitality spend performance against budget and identify emerging cost risks or efficiency opportunities and providing clear focus on causal analysis including mix and volume drivers
- Lead the development of “what-if” analysis to assess potential impacts of product, supplier or operational changes; and provide structured reporting on cost performance and budget outlook to team leaders and Dining & Hospitality and Customer Experience Design leadership
- Work with the Assistant Manager and Specialists to ensure robust invoice validation and pricing verification processes are in place and appropriate price change controls are in place in alignment with corporate governance; ensure supplier pricing structures, contractual terms and agreed discounts are accurately reflected in commercial models and invoicing processes; and identify opportunities for commercial efficiency and value optimization across the onboard and lounge products
- Partner with Culinary Design and Dining Performance to support the implementation of efficiency initiatives
- Provide commercial insight and analysis to support strategic planning within Dining and Hospitality; and identify cost optimization opportunities across the catering network and support their implementation in partnership with Culinary Design and Dining Performance, recognizing that operational and product decisions remain the responsibility of those teams
- Maintain strong alignment with Corporate Finance to ensure catering budget processes and reporting are consistent with company governance, ensure commercial data used across the teams is accurate, structured and available for decision-making; and support the Head of Commercial and Value Planning in developing commercial strategies and improving financial discipline across the function
Requirements
- University degree holder in relevant commercial and financial discipline; with 7+ years of experience in data analytics, reporting, or program management, preferably in procurement, travel, airline or hospitality or other commercial discipline
- Strong technical skills in Power BI (preferred) or Tableau, Structured Query Language (SQL), and Excel; experience with data modeling and Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) processes
- Demonstrated ability to translate complex data into clear, actionable insights and recommendations
- Experience in supplier performance management, contract or Service Level Agreement metrics, negotiations, and product performance analysis
- Proven ability to manage stakeholders and influence change across functions; and strong communication and presentation skills, with the ability to engage executive management and non-technical audiences
- Strong project management skills with Project Management Professional (PMP) certification preferred
- Strategic thinker with a passion for driving innovation and continuous improvement
- Energetic, persistent, independent, and creative; highly versatile and willing to take on new challenges
- Experience in leading and managing highly motivated individuals and teams.
- Knowledge of data privacy, governance frameworks, and Business Intelligence security is an advantage
Personal & Application Information
Cathay Pacific is an Equal Opportunities Employer. Personal data provided by job applicants will be used strictly in accordance with our Applicant Personal Information Collection Statement and for recruitment purposes only. Candidates not notified within eight weeks may consider their application unsuccessful. We keep records of your data for no longer than is necessary for the purpose for which we obtained them and any other permitted linked purposes. If your application is unsuccessful, we will keep your details on file for as long as is necessary to process your application or for the purposes of further job opportunities if you agree to such longer periods.
