Hiring For Principal Consultant Travel and Hospitality

Principal Consultant Travel & Hospitality

Location: Open to all cognizant present locations across India

Role summary: Senior practice leader responsible for building and scaling Cognizant's consulting presence in the Travel & Hospitality sector, with a focus on Hotels and Restaurant/QSR clients, driving both delivery credibility and new business.

Key responsibilities

• Industry & domain leadership: Bring 15+ years of experience in Hotels or Restaurant/QSR operations, with deep functional expertise across the client's business (operations, guest experience, franchise/property management, back-of-house processes) to advise clients as a genuine industry expert rather than a generalist consultant.
• Platform expertise: Bring hands-on exposure to key hospitality-tech platforms Oracle Hospitality (OPERA/PMS) and Kitchen Management/Back-of-House systems to ground client conversations in platform reality and credibly partner with technology and delivery teams during solutioning.
• Business development: Lead and win consulting-led engagements — build relationships at the VP/C-suite level, shape proposals and RFP responses, and convert relationships into signed mandates, with a track record of originating (not just delivering) work in Travel & Hospitality.
• Thought leadership: Represent the practice externally — publish POVs, speak at industry forums and hospitality/restaurant technology conferences, and build the market visibility that generates inbound pipeline for the practice.
• Delivery oversight: Provide senior client-facing leadership on active engagements, ensuring quality and outcomes on flagship accounts while mentoring and growing a team of consultants under the practice.
• Practice building: Partner with practice and BU leadership to define go-to-market plays, identify target accounts and prospects, and help build out the broader Travel & Hospitality team as the practice scales.