Position SummaryThe Vice President of Global Sales is responsible for leading AmaWaterways' sales strategy and organization, driving revenue growth, strengthening our travel advisor and trade partnerships, and ensuring the sales team consistently delivers against company goals.
This role provides leadership across the sales organization, including field sales, Key Accounts & Advisor Development, Group and Charter Sales, Sales Engagement, and sales effectiveness. The VP of Sales translates company strategy into clear commercial priorities, market plans, and measurable results while ensuring the different parts of the sales organization operate as one connected team.
The ideal candidate combines strong commercial instincts with a collaborative, people-focused leadership style. They understand how to grow a business through relationships, data, disciplined execution, and an exceptional experience for our travel advisor partners and guests.
Key ResponsibilitiesSales Strategy & Revenue Growth- Develop and execute the overall sales strategy in support of AmaWaterways' revenue, guest, and growth objectives.
- Establish clear sales priorities, goals, and performance expectations across channels, territories, accounts, and teams.
- Translate company revenue objectives into actionable sales plans and ensure teams understand where to focus their time and resources.
- Partner closely with Revenue Management, Marketing, Reservations, Finance, and other commercial leaders to align sales activity with business needs and available inventory.
- Identify opportunities to grow existing business, develop new accounts, expand distribution, and increase share within key markets.
- Use sales performance, market trends, booking patterns, customer insights, and competitive intelligence to continuously adjust strategy and resources.
- Maintain a strong understanding of the competitive landscape and translate market insights into actionable sales opportunities.
Key Accounts & Advisor Development- Lead the Key Accounts & Advisor Development strategy, including the development and growth of AmaWaterways' most important agency, consortium, host agency, and travel advisor relationships.
- Provide leadership and direction to the Director, Key Accounts & Advisor Development and ensure clear priorities, accountabilities, and performance expectations for the function.
- Establish growth strategies and account plans for key partners focused on increasing engagement, productivity, revenue, and share of business.
- Develop a disciplined approach to account segmentation, ensuring sales resources are aligned with the partners and advisors offering the greatest opportunity for growth.
- Develop strategies and programs to identify, engage, and grow high-potential travel advisors, including advisors who are new to AmaWaterways or have significant opportunity to increase production.
- Create clear advisor development strategies that move advisors from awareness and initial engagement to active selling, repeat production, and long-term partnership with AmaWaterways.
- Ensure Key Accounts & Advisor Development, field sales, and Sales Engagement operate as one connected sales organization with clear ownership of accounts and minimal overlap.
- Build and maintain senior-level relationships with strategic partners and represent AmaWaterways at key industry, consortium, host agency, and customer events.
- Partner with Marketing to develop campaigns, events, education, tools, and resources that help travel advisors grow their AmaWaterways business.
- Establish meaningful measures of success for key account and advisor development efforts and regularly evaluate performance and return on investment.
Sales Leadership & Performance- Lead, coach, and develop the sales leadership team and broader sales organization.
- Create a culture of accountability where expectations are clear, performance is regularly discussed, and strong results are recognized.
- Establish consistent sales routines, including forecasting, pipeline and account reviews, performance discussions, and market planning.
- Ensure territories, account assignments, and team structures support the company's growth priorities.
- Build strong succession plans and develop future sales leaders from within the organization.
- Address performance gaps quickly while providing team members with clear coaching, tools, and support to succeed.
- Partner with the People Team on organizational design, talent planning, compensation, incentives, performance management, and leadership development.
- Build a strong connection between individual sales performance and the broader goals of the company.
Sales Engagement & Effectiveness- Provide leadership and strategic direction for Sales Engagement and inside-sales activities, ensuring the function complements field sales and Key Accounts & Advisor Development.
- Develop strategies to engage advisors and accounts that may not require dedicated field-sales coverage but represent meaningful growth opportunities.
- Establish meaningful KPIs and reporting that provide visibility into sales activity, productivity, account performance, advisor engagement, and results.
- Improve the use of CRM, data, and sales tools to support better decision-making and stronger execution.
- Ensure incentive programs reinforce the right behaviors and appropriately reward individual and company performance.
- Continuously evaluate sales processes and identify opportunities to simplify work, improve productivity, and increase selling time.
- Maintain disciplined forecasting and provide senior leadership with clear visibility into performance, opportunities, and risks.
- Use data to identify where sales resources are generating the greatest return and where changes in coverage or strategy may be needed.
Travel Advisor & Trade Partnerships- Serve as a senior commercial ambassador for AmaWaterways within the travel advisor community.
- Maintain a strong understanding of the needs and expectations of travel advisors and agency partners.
- Ensure AmaWaterways is easy to do business with and that feedback from advisors and partners is incorporated into sales and company decision-making.
- Identify opportunities to strengthen advisor loyalty, education, engagement, and advocacy for the AmaWaterways brand.
- Partner across the organization to address recurring barriers or pain points affecting the advisor experience.
- Ensure the voice of the travel advisor and agency community is represented in commercial planning and decision-making.
Group & Charter Sales- Provide strategic leadership for AmaWaterways' group and charter sales business, with clear goals for revenue, passenger growth, profitability, and utilization.
- Develop and execute a comprehensive group and charter strategy across affinity groups, associations, corporations, incentive programs, specialty groups, and full-ship charters.
- Establish clear commercial guidelines for group and charter pricing, deposits, payment terms, concessions, attrition, cancellation policies, and other contractual terms, in partnership with Revenue Management and Finance.
- Create a disciplined approach to evaluating group and charter opportunities, balancing passenger volume and revenue potential with pricing, inventory requirements, operational complexity, and overall profitability.
- Build and maintain relationships with high-value group producers, charter brokers, meeting planners, incentive houses, tour operators, and other strategic partners.
- Develop proactive account plans and sales strategies to grow existing group and charter business while identifying new sources of demand.
- Establish a consistent pipeline and forecasting process for group and charter opportunities, including visibility into leads, proposals, contracting, deposits, conversion, and future revenue.
- Partner closely with Revenue Management to determine when inventory should be protected for group and charter opportunities and when it should be released for individual sales.
- Partner with Operations, Reservations, Finance, and other functions to ensure group and charter commitments are commercially sound and operationally executable.
- Establish clear ownership and handoffs from initial lead through contracting, booking, pre-departure, and final turnover to Operations.
- Monitor group and charter performance, including conversion rates, average revenue per passenger, profitability, cancellation and attrition trends, and production by source.
- Identify opportunities to improve processes, reduce friction, and make AmaWaterways easier to do business with for group and charter partners.
- Ensure group and charter sales strategies complement the broader travel advisor, key account, and direct sales strategies and contribute meaningfully to overall company goals.
Cross-Functional Leadership- Serve as a key member of the senior commercial leadership team and contribute to broader company strategy and decision-making.
- Build strong partnerships across Marketing, Revenue Management, Reservations, Operations, Finance, Technology, and the People Team.
- Ensure sales priorities are understood across the organization and that commitments made to customers and partners can be delivered operationally.
- Partner with Revenue Management and Marketing to ensure promotional activity, sales priorities, and inventory needs are aligned.
- Bring the voice of the travel advisor, agency partner, and marketplace into company discussions and decisions.
- Support major company initiatives, product launches, new markets, new ships, and other strategic growth priorities.
Leadership ExpectationsAt AmaWaterways, how we lead matters just as much as what we deliver. The Vice President of Global Sales is expected to:
- Lead with energy, authenticity, and accountability.
- Be visible and connected to the team, customers, and travel advisor community.
- Set clear expectations and follow through on commitments.
- Make decisions using both data and sound commercial judgment.
- Develop people rather than simply manage performance.
- Create clarity around ownership and accountability across the sales organization.
- Work across functions and avoid organizational silos.
- Communicate openly, directly, and respectfully.
- Stay close to the business and be willing to roll up their sleeves when needed.
- Create an environment where people feel supported while still being accountable for results.
Qualifications & Experience- 12+ years of progressive sales and commercial leadership experience, including significant experience leading sales teams.
- 5+ years of experience at the Vice President or comparable senior leadership level preferred.
- Travel, cruise, hospitality, luxury, tour operator, or related consumer travel experience strongly preferred.
- Demonstrated success developing and executing sales strategies that have delivered measurable revenue growth.
- Strong knowledge of travel agency distribution, travel advisors, consortia, host agencies, key accounts, and trade partnerships strongly preferred.
- Demonstrated experience developing key accounts and building programs that increase customer or partner.
