Public Affairs Manager

**Public Affairs Manager Italy**

This is a great opportunity for someone wanting to make a real impact as part of a small, global team.

**Key responsibilities**
- Ensure continuous monitoring and evaluation of relevant discussions, regulatory decisions and stakeholder activity on key public affairs / reputational issues
- Draft presentations, briefings for internal and external meetings, position papers and consultation responses
- Represent the company’s interests by engaging with relevant political and regulatory audiences on national, regional and local level
- Proactively coordinate and communicate internally to align messaging and provide colleagues with a thorough understanding of developments
- Help facilitate high-level meetings with key stakeholders to promote and advocate the company’s public policy priorities
- Coordinate with external consultants and closely align with relevant trade associations.
- Bachelor degree in policy, European Studies, international affairs, political science or other relevant field
- A proven track record of 5-8 years of relevant experience in Italy, ideally in a political/government institution in combination with inhouse or consultancy experience in the area of public affairs
- Good understanding of policy and legal challenges facing the tourism and tech industry particularly in Italy and affinity with the travel and platform industry
- Excellent oral communications skills and ability to distill complex information into clear messages that will resonate with political and regulatory audiences, as well as into succinct updates for the business teams
- High quality written skills and practical experience in drafting materials for use by regulators, senior executives or politicians
- Experience with the organisation of public affairs / policy events in Italy
- Experience developing creative and effective public affairs campaigns that underpin the company’s business objectives
- Outstanding organizational abilities, in particular, the capacity to manage multiple work streams at one time and the proactivity to drive work programmes forward and co-ordinate the involvement of all relevant stakeholders
- Experience working in fast-paced, multicultural environments
- Experience with managing sensitive reputational issues and/or crises
- Ability to engage directly with policy makers and to act as a spokesperson for the business
- Fluent English and Italian, with additional European languages a strong benefit
- Self-starter that is also an excellent team player
- Strong influencing skills and ability to inspire confidence, as well as the ability to establish and maintain effective relationships at all level
- High level of integrity with ability to develop both internal and external credibility
- Hands-on, results-focused and impactful.

**Further skills we are looking for**:

- Being curious, flexible, and a creative & pragmatic problem solver
- Confident yet collaborative
- Ability to influence stakeholders across all levels within the organisation
- Being proactive, resilient and having the drive to get things done
- Having sound judgement and the ability to see the big picture and simultaneously appreciate the details necessary to operationalise the strategy
- Having the courage to take positions and make tough judgment calls
- Being a team player, self aware and a good listener - a diverse group will always find the best solution
- Ability to move with agility, prioritise workloads and meet deadlines
- Forward thinking with an interest in emerging issues in legal and policy.

**Why join the Legal & Public Affairs Team now?**

**Who we are**:
To match our global footprint and the array of challenges we face, we are proud to highlight the diversity that exists across this group. We are a team of approximately 90 professionals - representing more than 25 nationalities - with lawyers qualified in many different countries, as well as non-lawyers with public policy, economics, compliance and risk backgrounds. Our team’s previous experience spans across a multitude of industries with team members having worked for major global companies (including Uber, American Express, Airbnb, Amazon, Google, Nokia), tech and other startups, government entities (e.g., the Dutch Competition Authority), and reputable international law firms (e.g., Hogan Lovells, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Baker Mckenzie), and Public Affairs firms (e.g., FTI Consulting, FIPRA, Brunswick).

**As a team, we believe in**:

- Booking’s mission of making it easier for everyone to experience the world. Travel helps people become more open minded, curious and flexible
- Allowing members of our teams to experience different areas or, if they want to be specialists, give them the tools to become more effective in their jobs
- Providing holistic legal and public affairs advice; our team should not work in silos
- Always looking for better ways of doing things, improving our Legal Operations function, innova