Senior Project Manager Travel

FIFA has established a Local FIFA Subsidiary in Brazil to work together with FIFA Zurich to deliver the biggest women’s sporting event in the world, the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027™ (“FWWC2027”) that for the first time ever, is hosted in South America in Brazil. Now is your time to be part of the workforce that is creating this unique and unforgettable experience.

Please submit your CV in English, as it will be reviewed by an international team.

The Senior Travel Project Manager oversees strategic travel planning, commercial management, and operations within the complex environment of a multi-stakeholder tournament.

This position plays a key role in ensuring the success of the FIFA Women’s World Cup Brazil 2027 by organizing and managing travel projects that provide safe, efficient, and dependable transportation for everyone involved in the event.

Responsible for turning FWWC27 event requirements into practical travel plans, the Senior Travel Project Manager works under tight deadlines and in collaboration with various stakeholders.

Collaboration, accountability, and operational excellence are central to this role, which involves close coordination with the FIFA Global Travel team, other functional departments, host country authorities, and selected travel service providers.

The Senior Travel Project Manager ensures all projects adhere to company policies, service standards, sustainability commitments, and risk management practices. They also anticipate dependencies, address operational risks, and drive progress on key milestones.

By using structured project management methods and competency standards, this role supports consistent outcomes, builds stakeholder trust, and delivers an exceptional tournament experience. Additionally, it contributes to knowledge sharing, ongoing improvement, and planning for future events.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Strategic, Commercial & Financial Oversight

- Ownership of tournament travel budget planning, cost benchmarking, and financial risk mitigation
- Market benchmarking of airline/charter pricing to ensure competitivenes (RFP)
- Identification, analysis, and escalation of pricing inconsistencies, capacity constraints, and commercial misalignments with airline and travel partners
- Contribution to the development of travel rate cards, pricing frameworks, and commercial guidelines

Scenario Planning & Risk Management

- Development of contingency plans for high level client groups
- Proactive identification and mitigation of operational risk
- Decision-making under high time pressure to ensure continuity of tournament operations while maintaining service levels and cost control

Senior Stakeholder & Executive Interface

- Acting as an advisory interface between FIFA Functional Areas, External Stakeholders, Suppliers, Host Country Authorities, and FIFA/FWWC27 Senior leadership
- Preparation of executive-level briefings, recommendations, and decision papers related to travel strategy, pricing, and operational readiness
- Support to FIFA Partnerships in managing expectations with commercial partners in high-demand or capacity-constrained environments

Data, Systems & Process Governance

- Oversight of travel-related data accuracy, reporting structures, and decision-support tools used throughout the tournament lifecycle
- Ensuring transparency, traceability, and auditability of travel decisions, supplier selections, and cost structures
- Contribution to the continuous improvement of FIFA travel handbooks, templates, operational playbooks, and systems

Tournament Scale & Complexity Management

- End-to-end coordination of high-volume, multi-city charter and scheduled flight operations during tournament time
- Ensuring consistent service delivery across multiple client groups (Teams, Delegates, Guests, VIPs, Workforce, FIFA/FWWC27 stakeholders)

Education

- Completed (business) travel agency education or business education with training in the travel industry
- Further education in tourism, event or general management

Experience

- At least 5 years of experience in the business travel industry (travel, accommodation and ground transportation)
- Excellent skills in GDS, preferably GDS Amadeus/ticketing and fare rules are a must
- At least 2 years of experience in project and event management

Skills & Competencies

- Experience in budgeting and accounting
- Good negotiation skills
- Fluent in English and Portuguese, additional languages beneficial
- Practical commercial experience, distinguished geographical knowledge
- Systemic and analytical thinking
- Autonomy and sense of responsibility
- Practical and process-oriented working profile with quality and efficiency
- Intercultural competencies, Flexibility, adapting working processes to different cultures
- Strong team player
- Clear communication skills in different languages
- Friendly and diplomatic behaviour to customers, team members and working colleagues
- Capability to promote knowledge transfer with other team members
- Service-oriented working style
- Taking initiative and working proactively
- Speedy delivery of short-term orders, respecting deadlines
- Vision to predict potential problematical scenarios and anticipate solutions
- Creativity to solve unforeseen issues
- Solution-oriented operation

Certifications & Requirements

- Proficient in MS Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel)
- Strong GDS skills, with preference for Amadeus/ticketing and fare rules required