What are the responsibilities and job description for the Director Solutions Strategy - Enterprise Architect position at Horizontal Talent?
Location: Strong preference to Bethesda, MD
Onsite: 3-days per week if local to Bethesda, MD otherwise 40 – 50% travel if not local to Bethesda.
Must Have Skills:
Work Authorization: Client-facing; ~25–40% travel as needed
Role Summary
We’re seeking a seasoned Director of Solutions Strategy to lead the design and commercialization of end-to-end solutions for Travel & Hospitality clients—primarily hotel groups, resorts, and multi-brand portfolios. You will own the solutions strategy from market insight to GTM, define enterprise application roadmaps (e.g., PMS/CRS/RMS/CDP/CRM/loyalty/commerce), and partner with delivery and product leaders to translate strategy into measurable outcomes.
This role combines industry depth (hospitality operations, distribution, loyalty) with strong enterprise architecture fluency across core systems and modern data/experience platforms.
Outcomes (What Success Looks Like In 12 Months)
Solution Strategy & Architecture
Onsite: 3-days per week if local to Bethesda, MD otherwise 40 – 50% travel if not local to Bethesda.
Must Have Skills:
- Industry depth: 10–15 years in T&H, with 7 years focused on hospitality enterprise applications and systems across PMS/CRS/RMS/CRM/CDP/CMS, payment, and data platforms.
- Enterprise architecture: Proven track in designing API-first integrations, event-driven architectures, and data platforms (lakehouse/streaming/real-time decisioning) that connect core hotel systems to digital channels and loyalty.
- Commercial acumen: Experience building repeatable, margin-accretive solution offerings; comfort with outcome-based pricing and business case development.
- GTM leadership: Ownership of sales assets, demos, case studies, and presales motions; ability to coach teams and present to C-suite (brand, owner, and management company stakeholders).
- Delivery partnership: Ability to translate strategy into execution (reference designs, standards, KPIs/OKRs) and govern multi-workstream programs.
Work Authorization: Client-facing; ~25–40% travel as needed
Role Summary
We’re seeking a seasoned Director of Solutions Strategy to lead the design and commercialization of end-to-end solutions for Travel & Hospitality clients—primarily hotel groups, resorts, and multi-brand portfolios. You will own the solutions strategy from market insight to GTM, define enterprise application roadmaps (e.g., PMS/CRS/RMS/CDP/CRM/loyalty/commerce), and partner with delivery and product leaders to translate strategy into measurable outcomes.
This role combines industry depth (hospitality operations, distribution, loyalty) with strong enterprise architecture fluency across core systems and modern data/experience platforms.
Outcomes (What Success Looks Like In 12 Months)
- Growth impact: Launch 2–3 repeatable solution archetypes that drives $15-20M pipeline and win rate improvements across target hotel segments.
- Client value: Deliver measurable business outcomes (RevPAR/ADR uplift, direct booking growth, loyalty engagement, cost-to-serve reduction) through integrated solutions spanning booking, stay, and post-stay.
- Portfolio coherence: Establish a solution blueprint and roadmap that aligns brand, commercial, and technology strategies; standardize reusable accelerators and reference designs.
- Enablement: Train account teams and presales on solution narratives, demos, and commercial models; certify ?50 consultants on the solution playbook.
Solution Strategy & Architecture
- Define the end-to-end solution vision across guest acquisition, booking, in-stay operations, and loyalty/retention.
- Map business capabilities to enterprise systems (PMS, CRS, RMS, CRM/CDP, CMS/AEM, booking engines, payment orchestration, data platforms) and design integration patterns (APIs/eventing/ETL).
- Create solution archetypes for priority scenarios (e.g., CRS modernization, PMS migration, direct booking acceleration, loyalty re-platform, data monetization).
- Own core sales assets (narratives, playbooks, pitch decks, demos, case studies) and partner marketing content; set differentiated value propositions for hotel sub-segments.
- Define pricing/commercial approaches (outcomes-based, subscription, build-operate-transfer).
- Lead executive workshops; translate brand/owner/operator goals into a sequenced roadmap and OKRs.
- Maintain a feedback loop with delivery/product to evolve accelerators, standards, and reference implementations.
- Curate partner strategies across hospitality tech vendors and hyperscalers (e.g., Oracle Opera PMS, Saber/SynXis CRS, IDeaS RMS, Salesforce CRM/Marketing Cloud, Adobe Experience Cloud/AEM, AWS/Azure/GCP, payment providers); build joint offerings and co-sell motions.
- Publish POVs on distribution modernization, loyalty personalization, data clean rooms, and hotel commerce.
- Mentor solution architects and strategists; codify playbooks and training paths.
- Industry depth: 10–15 years in T&H, with 7 years focused on hospitality enterprise applications and systems across PMS/CRS/RMS/CRM/CDP/CMS, payment, and data platforms.
- Enterprise architecture: Proven track in designing API-first integrations, event-driven architectures, and data platforms (lakehouse/streaming/real-time decisioning) that connect core hotel systems to digital channels and loyalty.
- Commercial acumen: Experience building repeatable, margin-accretive solution offerings; comfort with outcome-based pricing and business case development.
- GTM leadership: Ownership of sales assets, demos, case studies, and presales motions; ability to coach teams and present to C-suite (brand, owner, and management company stakeholders).
- Delivery partnership: Ability to translate strategy into execution (reference designs, standards, KPIs/OKRs) and govern multi-workstream programs.
- Hands-on familiarity with Oracle Opera/OXI, Saber SynXis, IDeaS, Amadeus, Salesforce (Sales/Service/Marketing Cloud), Adobe Experience Cloud/AEM, Composable CDP, Mulesoft/Apigee, Kafka/Kinesis, Snowflake/Databricks, Power BI.
- Experience with booking engines, payments (PCI, tokenization, SCA), and revenue/forecasting analytics.
- Knowledge of OTA/GDS/TMC distribution, rate parity, channel management, and meta search.
- Exposure to loyalty modernization (tiers, partnerships, real-time earn/burn) and guest identity/unified profile.
- Background in data privacy/compliance (GDPR/CCPA), accessibility, and security in hospitality contexts.
- Strategic storytelling & executive facilitation
- Systems thinking & blueprinting
- Outcome orientation & measurement (RevPAR, ADR, NPS, CAC/LTV)
- Partner/Ecosystem orchestration
- Team leadership & mentoring
- Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Hospitality Technology, or related field; MBA or equivalent experience preferred.
- Relevant certifications (e.g., Salesforce/Adobe, cloud architect, data platform).
- Reports to: VP/Head of Technology (T\&H) or Practice GM
- Directs: Small cross-functional squad (solution architects, strategists, GTM specialists); dotted-line to delivery/product leads.