Strategy & Public Policy Manager Africa (Contract)

Founded in August of 2008 and based in San Francisco, California, Airbnb is a trusted community marketplace for people to list, discover, and book unique travel experiences around the world. Whether an apartment for a night, a castle for a week, or a villa for a month, Airbnb allows people to Belong Anywhere through unique travel experiences at any price point, in more than 65,000 cities and over 191 countries. We promote a culture of curiosity, humanity, and creativity through our product, brand, and, most importantly, our people.

We are looking for a Strategy & Public Policy Manager for sub-Saharan Africa, based in Cape Town.

It is our mission to work closely with politicians, regulators, and legislators to educate them about Airbnb and the “sharing economy”, highlight the significant social and economic impact our business has on towns, regions and cities, and showcase best practices from around the world. We want policy makers to understand the regulatory challenges that affect our host community and find solutions that are good for their countries and our thriving local community.

We have a team dedicated to sub-Saharan Africa, led by the Campaign Manager for MEA. We work in a cross-functional way to deliver on our political campaign objectives. The Strategy & Public Policy Manager will be required to support the Campaign Manager on providing direction and motivations to this multi-disciplinary team of partnership builders, communicators, organisers and content producers. You will be required to deploy first-rate organisational skills to ensure that our strategy is executed, targets are set, and projects delivered.

To do this role effectively you must be able to build trust and talk to a variety of authorities, from city to regional to national government to help them understand the contribution that our community makes, and engage them in the process of creating fair legal and regulatory frameworks that embrace the potential of the sharing economy.

The ideal candidate will be passionate about Airbnb and the sharing economy, and have proven experience in managing regulatory and political issues within a corporate context - either as an in-house policy professional or as a consultant - or within politics, campaigns or advocacy groups. Experience in a startup e-commerce or other high-growth, fast-paced company would be an advantage.



Responsibilities:

• Support the Campaign Manager MEA in reviewing strategy and priorities, advise on local needs and plan relevant activities.
• Experience of managing complex projects with multiple stakeholders. Highly organised and able to stay on top of multiple projects simultaneously;
• Lead on developing and implementing Airbnb’s legislative and public policy activities; including helping determine advocacy priorities, positions, and strategies.
• Work with legislative bodies and government agencies on Airbnb’s priority issues, including crafting and negotiating language for legislation, drafting comments on administrative regulations, and authoring substantive issue briefs and position papers.
• Represent Airbnb in coalitions and collaborations to advance Airbnb’s advocacy initiatives – building these coalitions from scratch if necessary.
• Manage consultants and marshall external resources to execute our plans.
• Maintain relationships with an extensive network of contacts in local, regional and national legislative, executive and administrative offices, as well as with allied groups and coalition partners.
• Engage in research, writing and other activities to provide analysis and critical thinking on developments affecting Airbnb’s priorities.
• Monitor legislation and regulatory matters and advise the company with respect to policy challenges.
• Represent Airbnb in meetings with government and elected officials.
• Advise Airbnb’s teams on public policy matters to guide development of products, services and policies.

Requirements:

• At least seven years experience working with policy issues in a relevant business or non-governmental organisation, or in a political, governmental or regulatory context (a mix of public and private sector experience is an advantage).
• Direct policy experience in one of the following fields: tourism, housing, landlord/tenant law or e-commerce/internet regulation – which must include a track record of influencing regulation and legislation at some level of government.
• Degree or advanced degree level in related field.
• First-rate personal, political, analytical and organisational skills.
• Ability to quickly get up to speed on complex technical and regulatory issues.
• Excellent communicator with great interpersonal and presentation skills, both for subject matter experts and the layperson.
• Ability to work independently as well as a team player in a multi-task work environment while producing the highest calibre work product in a timely manner.
• Self starter with a sense of humour and the ability to thrive in a fast moving and sometimes stressful environment.

Airbnb is committed to working with the best and brightest people from the broadest talent pool possible. We believe a diversity of ideas fosters innovation and engagement, and allows us to attract the best people, and to develop the best products, services and solutions. Qualified individuals from all walks of life are encouraged to apply.