As Chief Business Officer, James Waters oversees all of Booking.com’s business activities worldwide, including product development, marketing, commercial operations, technology and customer service, where he is focused on leading the company’s efforts to deliver a world-class, end-to-end travel booking experience.

With a tenure at Booking.com spanning more than 15 years, James has held senior roles across nearly every part of the company; this extensive experience has equipped him with vast cross-functional knowledge critical to his role today and the continual optimization of collaboration across the business.

Most recently, James served as the Senior Vice President of Accommodations and Operations, where he was responsible for the growth and strategy of the company’s core business unit, alongside the Customer Service organization. During this time, James played a key role in steering the accommodations business to deliver record growth post-pandemic, exemplified by almost 20% uplift in alternative accommodation supply between 2019-2023, a driver of our business growth,  despite the unprecedented challenges of that period. Prior to that he was the Vice President of Customer Service, where he oversaw the integration of Booking.com’s global workforce of thousands of highly trained customer experience agents with technological innovations to deliver seamless communication for every customer, every time, everywhere.

James studied at the University of Cambridge and holds both a BA and MA in Biological Anthropology.