Travel & Mobility Manager (Global)

Founded in 2014, Circles is a global technology company reimagining the telco industry with its innovative SaaS platform, empowering telco operators worldwide to effortlessly launch innovative digital brands or refresh existing ones, accelerating their transformation into techcos.

Today, Circles partners with leading telco operators across multiple countries and continents, including KDDI Corporation, Etisalat Group (e&), AT&T, and Telkomsel, creating blueprints for future telco and digital experiences enjoyed by millions of consumers globally.

Besides its SaaS business, Circles operates three other distinct businesses:

Circles.Life : A wholly-owned digital lifestyle telco brand based in Singapore, Circles.Life is powered by Circles ’ SaaS platform and pioneering go-to-market strategies. It is the digital market leader in Singapore and has won numerous awards for marketing, customer service, and innovative product offerings beyond connectivity.

Circles Aspire : A global provider of Communications Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) solutions. Its cloud-based Experience Cloud platform enables enterprises, service providers and developers to deliver and scale mobile, messaging, IoT, and connectivity services worldwide.

Jetpac : Specializing in travel tech solutions, Jetpac provides seamless eSIM roaming for over 200 destinations and innovative travel lifestyle products, redefining connectivity for digital travelers. Jetpac was awarded Travel eSIM of the Year.

Circles is backed by renowned global investors, including Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia), Warburg Pincus, Founders Fund, and EDBI (the investment arm of the Singapore Economic Development Board), with a track record of backing industry challengers.

About the role

That travel needs an owner. As Travel & Mobility Manager you run travel and mobility for the whole of Circles: every country we operate in, and every country our travellers go to. You sit in Bangalore. Your remit is global.

One day you are negotiating an airline deal or a hotel programme. The next you are getting a visa over the line, walking Finance through where the travel budget is going, or rerouting a traveller stranded mid-trip.

Outside Circles, you work through a network of partners: our travel management company (TMC), airlines, hotels, visa agencies and insurers. You choose them, manage them and hold them to their service levels.

Inside Circles, you do not work alone. Finance is your partner on budgets, spend and savings. People Operations, the People Business Partners and the wider People team are your partners on policy, visas and relocations. Travellers and their managers turn to you as the expert.

This is not a booking desk. It is a global programme to shape and own, at a company that keeps adding countries.

What you will do

Run the travel programme

• •Own the TMC partnership: the commercial relationship, service levels, performance reviews and a voice in their roadmap.
• •Run the TMC's booking platform so it works for travellers in every country: policy set-up, approval flows, users, integrations and adoption.
• •Shape the global travel policy with Finance and People leadership, enforce it, and change it when the business changes.
• •Make the programme easy to use, with clear guidance and training for travellers, bookers and approvers.
• •Get the travel programme ready for each new location before the first person lands.

Get us better deals

• •Build preferred hotel programmes in the cities we visit most: tenders, rate negotiation and audits.
• •Negotiate airline agreements on our key routes, then hold carriers to what they promised.
• •Manage ground transport and every other travel supplier against clear service levels.
• •Review suppliers regularly and renegotiate when the value slips.

Show us what the numbers say

• •Produce monthly reporting that People and Finance leaders actually read: spend, booking behaviour, policy compliance and supplier performance.
• •Track travel spend against budget and flag problems early.
• •Turn travel data into insight and clear recommendations.
• •Find the savings, lead the cost-efficiency initiatives and prove what they delivered.

Work hand in hand with Finance and People

• •Partner with Finance on travel budgets and forecasts, expense rules, supplier payments and reconciliation, so travel spend is planned and never a surprise.
• •Agree savings targets with Finance, then report progress against them.
• •Work with People Operations and the People Business Partners on visas, work permits, relocations and policy exceptions.
• •Keep Finance and People leaders ahead of the news: what is changing in travel, what it will cost and what you recommend.

Get travellers across borders

• •Own visas for our travellers end to end. Manage the visa agencies and immigration counsel so applications are filed on time and fully compliant. You direct the work rather than process the paperwork yourself.
• •Know the visa and work permit routes for our key corridors: Singapore (Employment Pass, S Pass), the UAE (work, Golden and mission visas), Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Morocco, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Japan and the US (H-1B, L-1, B-1/B-2, ESTA).
• •Advise travellers and managers on documents, eligibility and realistic lead times before a trip is booked, not after.
• •Keep one central tracker of visas and work permits across every Circles entity, so renewals never slip and nobody gets stuck at a border.

Keep travellers safe

• •Own traveller safety: assess the risk, know where our travellers are, and lead the response when things go wrong.
• •Brief travellers before they head to higher-risk destinations.
• •Manage travel insurance, from renewals and the insurer relationship to supporting claims.

Be the person travellers trust

• •Take on the complex bookings: multi-country itineraries, group travel and executive trips.
• •Be the escalation point when a trip goes sideways: a cancelled flight, an emergency reroute, a supplier that has let someone down. Fix it fast, then fix the cause.
• •Ask travellers how their trips went, and act on what they tell you.

Support relocations

• •Support relocation cases in partnership with People Operations, including work permits.
• •Coordinate our relocation vendors (movers, temporary housing, destination services) and work with the People Business Partners on packages and allowances.

What you bring

• •You have run corporate travel as a travel manager in a multinational, across multiple countries.
• •You have worked with TMCs and managed booking platforms such as TravelPerk, Navan or Egencia, alongside travel expense tools. The platform experience is non-negotiable.
• •You have built hotel programmes and negotiated with airlines.
• •You have a track record of managing travel and visa vendors against clear service levels.
• •You have partnered closely with Finance on travel budgets, reporting and savings.
• •You can turn travel data into insight and management information that leaders use.
• •You have driven cost-efficiency initiatives and can show the results.
• •You know visa and work authorisation frameworks first hand across the UAE and wider Middle East, India, the US and Asia.
• •You have supported relocation cases alongside a People or HR team.
• •Ideally, you have worked in a fast-moving, multi-entity company spanning APAC, the Middle East, Europe and North America.

How you work

• •You build strong working relationships across functions, especially with Finance and People colleagues.
• •You communicate clearly and with empathy in written and spoken English, and can explain a complex visa process to anyone, from a new hire to an executive.
• •You are service focused and you care about the traveller experience, especially when a trip goes wrong.
• •You are comfortable working across cultures and time zones, because your travellers can be anywhere.
• •You negotiate commercially and balance cost against what travellers need.
• •You stay calm and decisive under pressure.
• •You are organised