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vpteam

vpteam

Director of Marketplace

Company

vpteam

Role

Director of Marketplace

Location

Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates (Remote)

Job type

Contract

Found on Mokaru

20 hours ago

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Salary

Not disclosed by employer

Job description

Reports to: Group COO Function: Marketplace / Operations & Commercial B2B Contract

About the role

We're looking for a Director of Marketplace to build, scale, and grow our premium Lifestyle & Travel vertical — with wellness at its core. Reporting directly to the Group COO, you'll own both the commercial growth and the operational foundation of a curated marketplace that connects discerning, experience-driven members with the best of wellness, travel, and lifestyle.

Wellness is the centre of gravity for this vertical. The most valuable experiences our members want — and the fastest-growing part of premium travel and lifestyle — are built around wellbeing: wellness retreats, spas and longevity clinics, fitness and recovery, mental health and mindfulness, and health-led travel. You'll own this category end-to-end alongside the broader travel and lifestyle services (hotels, flights, accommodations, eSIMs, and exclusive perks), and make it the reason members choose this product.

This is a commercial and operational leadership role. You'll grow the marketplace — acquiring premium supply, driving demand and conversion, and owning the economics — while turning a fragmented ecosystem of partners into a scalable, reliable, and genuinely premium offering. The ideal candidate has built and grown a premium travel, wellness, or lifestyle-services marketplace and knows what an exceptional, members-first standard of service actually feels like.

What you'll own

  • Marketplace growth & commercial

Own the growth and commercial performance of the vertical — GMV, revenue, take-rate, and unit economics

Acquire and curate premium supply across wellness, travel, and lifestyle, with wellness as the priority category

Drive the demand side: conversion, attach rate, repeat usage, and marketplace liquidity (balancing supply and demand)

Negotiate partner commercial terms — rates, inventory access, exclusivity, and co-marketing

Build the merchandising and curation strategy that makes premium wellness and travel experiences easy to discover and book

Identify and launch new wellness and lifestyle categories, partners, and markets to expand the offering

  • Operational leadership & strategy

Define and execute the operational strategy for wellness, lifestyle, and travel services

Build scalable processes, frameworks, and playbooks for partner onboarding and lifecycle management

Identify operational gaps and inefficiencies and implement structured improvements

Establish clear ownership, accountability, and KPIs across all operational streams

  • Partner operations & ecosystem management

Own onboarding, integration, and ongoing operations of partners (wellness retreats and clinics, spas, fitness and recovery providers, hotels, airlines, OTAs, eSIM providers, perks platforms, etc.)

Manage outsourced service providers, including concierge support and customer experience vendors, while protecting a premium, on-brand standard of service

Define SLAs, performance metrics, and accountability frameworks for external vendors

Ensure partners meet performance, SLA, and quality standards — and the curation bar for a premium audience

Build strong relationships with key partners and act as the primary operational and commercial escalation point

Continuously evaluate and expand the partner ecosystem to improve coverage, quality, and value

  • Premium member experience & service reliability

Own the end-to-end member journey across all wellness, lifestyle, and travel services

Set and protect a premium, members-first service standard — proactive, white-glove, and built around trust and care

Ensure high reliability across discovery, booking, fulfillment, and post-purchase support flows

Lead travel disruption and duty-of-care response (cancellations, delays, emergencies) with 24/7 readiness and rebooking at scale

Monitor and improve premium experience metrics (NPS/CSAT, conversion, success rate, cancellations, complaints, resolution time)

Work closely with Support teams to identify pain points and proactively resolve them before members feel them

  • Cross-functional coordination

Act as the central bridge between Operations, Product, Engineering, QA, Support, Compliance, and Partnerships

Ensure smooth integration of partner services into the product ecosystem

Drive alignment across teams so features are correctly implemented, tested, and launched

Create structured feedback loops between Support, QA, and Product teams to improve member experience

  • Issue resolution & escalation management

Build frameworks for identifying, triaging, and resolving operational issues

Oversee resolution of complex issues across bookings, payments, fulfillment, and partner failures

Partner closely with Finance teams to resolve payment-related issues including failed transactions, refunds, reconciliation gaps, and settlement discrepancies

Ensure strong coordination between Operations, Finance, Support, and Engineering for timely issue resolution

Establish escalation protocols across internal teams and external partners

  • Process optimization & internal efficiency

Streamline internal workflows between Operations, Support, QA, and Engineering

Reduce friction in partner integrations and service delivery

Introduce automation and tooling where possible to improve efficiency

Ensure documentation and SOPs are maintained and followed

  • Performance, analytics & member insight

Define and track KPIs for growth, partner performance, operational efficiency, and member experience

Build dashboards and reporting systems for visibility across stakeholders

Use member data and insight to drive personalization, offers, and lifetime value — not just reporting

  • Compliance, trust & risk management

Work with Legal and Compliance teams to ensure all partner agreements meet regulatory requirements

Own trust & safety and fraud risk across bookings and payments (booking fraud, fake inventory, chargebacks, refund abuse)

Ensure operational processes align with compliance standards, and identify and mitigate operational risks

What we're looking for

Required

Direct experience building and growing a premium travel, wellness, or lifestyle-services marketplace — a multi-sided platform connecting members with third-party providers (e.g., wellness retreats and clinics, spas, fitness, hotels, flights, accommodations, OTAs, eSIMs, or perks). This is a must-have: you should have personally owned both the operations and the growth of this kind of marketplace model.

A premium, members-first service instinct — a track record of delivering exceptional, high-touch experiences for an affluent or experience-driven audience

8–12+ years of experience across operations and commercial/marketplace growth

Proven experience managing complex partner ecosystems and multi-sided platforms, including supply acquisition and commercial negotiation

Strong leadership experience with the ability to build and scale teams and processes

Deep understanding of operational workflows across product, engineering, and customer support

Commercial fluency — comfortable owning GMV, take-rate, and unit economics

Highly member-centric mindset focused on delivering seamless, premium experiences

Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, plus excellent stakeholder management and communication

Strong plus

Background in wellness, hospitality, luxury travel, or affluent consumer brands

Experience in fintech, super apps, or high-growth consumer tech environments

Success in this role looks like

The wellness-led Lifestyle & Travel vertical grows in supply, demand, and revenue — with healthy unit economics

Members choose product for premium wellness and travel experiences, and come back

Wellness, lifestyle, and travel services operate reliably with minimal member friction

Strong coordination across Product, Engineering, QA, and Support teams

Clear visibility into growth, operational performance, and partner quality

Fast issue resolution, strong duty of care, and reduced operational incidents

Scalable processes that support rapid expansion of services, partners, and markets

Continuous improvement driven by member feedback and data insight

Hiring process

Intro Call with a recruiter

Call with CPO/COO

Call with Co-founder (optionally)

Offer

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