Senior Business Development Manager, Pliant
Travel, US
Plus performance-based incentives
More information about location
Digital corporate credit card solutions
Be an early applicant
Digital corporate credit card solutions
201-500 employees
Be an early applicant
Plus performance-based incentives
More information about location
201-500 employees
Company mission
To empower businesses to grow by providing a smart payment option that grows with their business.
Role
Who you are
- 3–5 years of B2B sales experience, ideally with clients in the travel industry or adjacent verticals (e.g., hospitality tech, payments, B2B platforms)
- Knowledge of the U.S. travel ecosystem—especially the commercial workflows and credit requirements of travel intermediaries
- Proven ability to run structured sales cycles and manage multiple stakeholders (Finance, Ops, Product, C-level)
- Familiarity with CRMs (HubSpot, Salesforce) and sales methodologies such as SPIN, MEDDIC, or Challenger
- Experience selling fintech, payments, or expense solutions is a strong plus
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills
- Fluent English required; additional languages a plus
What the job involves
- We are looking for a (Senior) Business Development Manager, Travel - U.S. (m/f/d) to accelerate our expansion in one of Pliant’s most strategic verticals: travel
- You’ll be focused on identifying, engaging, and converting travel-focused businesses that can benefit from flexible credit, virtual cards, and automated spend controls
- You’ll work closely with our commercial and product teams to tailor messaging and solution design for OTAs, TMCs, consolidators, air ticket resellers, and B2B travel marketplaces
- This is a high-impact, mid-level sales role with plenty of ownership and growth potential
- Travel Industry Acquisition: Source and qualify new prospects across the B2B travel space, including OTAs, TMCs, and ticketing consolidators
- Lead Pipeline Ownership: Manage outbound and inbound leads through the full sales cycle—from discovery to demo, negotiation, and close
- Industry Messaging & Positioning: Tailor your outreach and conversations to address travel-specific pain points (e.g., payment delays, reconciliation, fraud risk, chargebacks)
- Collaboration with Product & Sales: Share feedback from the field to shape segment-specific collateral, integrations, and feature enhancements
- CRM & Reporting: Maintain accurate records in HubSpot or Salesforce and ensure strong sales hygiene and forecast visibility
- Market Research: Stay up to date on trends in the U.S. travel market—emerging players, policy shifts, and competitive developments
- Partner with Marketing: Support go-to-market campaigns targeting the travel industry and contribute to event presence, case study generation, and co-marketing
Our take
The corporate credit card industry, historically dominated by giants like AmEx, has seen rapid disruption and growth over recent years. An influx of VC investment boosted smaller outfits like Divvy and Brex Inc. to multi-billion dollar operations, and this has cracked open the market to a host of smaller fintech startups.
Pliant is a German company entering the scene, but it’s a competitive one. It's hoping to stand out by prioritising seamless software integrations, competitive cashback, and a new optional feature offsetting travel-related CO2 emissions. The latter is incredibly novel and has undoubtedly won the company some press in an increasingly sustainability-oriented climate.
Pliant’s offering of both physical and digital cards, as well as its suite of advantages and services, has enabled the company to successfully adapt to the growing payments market. The company has, thus far, entered seven additional European markets and expanded its customer portfolio sixfold. Following successful funding rounds, Pliant is set to further expand operations and its business reach, with a focus on the US.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
233% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 5 rounds)
Apr 2025
$41m
SERIES B
Apr 2024
$21m
SERIES A
Total funding: $122.7m
Company benefits
- Home office and remote work
- Flexible working hours
- Mobility discount
- Budget for professional development and training
- Railcard
- Monthly food allowance
- Gympass
- Weekly mindfulness sessions
- Team events
Company HQ
Kollwitzkiez, Berlin, Germany
Leadership
Fabian Turner
(Co-Founder & CPO)Previously the Head of Operations at Lendico, and went on to serve as CPO at FinCompare.
Malte Rau
(Co-Founder & CEO)Previously a Portfolio Manager and Head of Fintech Investments at Global Growth Cap, they then went on to found Geldspeicher GmbH.
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