Senior Manager, Terminal

Senior Manager, Terminal & Guest Experience

About Vancouver Island Ferry Company (VIFC) and Hullo

We're the Vancouver Island Ferry Company, a modern Canadian ferry company transforming how we travel in British Columbia. It's all about being an easier, faster, and more enjoyable ferry experience.

Headquartered in Nanaimo and operating under our service brand Hullo, we will provide service between downtown Vancouver and Nanaimo. We're talking comfortable and reliable sailings in around 70 minutes, a seamless booking process complete with reservable seats, and refreshments that will be just that…fresh. Say goodbye to the biggest pain points of travel and be ready to be welcomed aboard with a smile and a "hullo".

The Hullo Culture

At Hullo, we're all about taking things to the next level Our obsession with safety and delivering an unforgettable guest experience is only matched by our passion for constant improvement. We don't settle for the ordinary - we encourage our employees to think outside the box, innovate and make waves. With data-driven decision making and a continuous improvement mindset, we are committed to raising the bar in everything we do.

VIFC is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We are strongly committed to diversity and inclusion in our organization. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment regardless of their race, color, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, and any other category protected under applicable law. We welcome all qualified applicants who contribute to the further diversification of ideas.

Location: Nanaimo or Vancouver, BC (with regular weekly travel between terminals, hours will vary including early morning & late evenings)

About the Role:

The Sr. Manager, Terminal & GX will be the principal architect of our entire shoreside ecosystem. Your mandate is to design, build, and scale a self-regulating, resilient, and transparent operation that replaces passenger anxiety with trust. Your success will be measured by our ability to become the most reliable and seamless option in the region.

We believe the ground journey is a solvable problem. It is a complex system of people, processes, and infrastructure that can be engineered for efficiency, reliability, and even delight. We are seeking an operational leader to do just that.

Core Responsibilities

As the Sr. Manager, you will own the three aspects of the terminal system: the physical operation, the guest experience, and the organizational leadership.

1. Operational System Design & Execution

• Model, design, and continuously optimize the end-to-end flow of passengers and vessels to maximize throughput and minimize friction.
• Identify and eliminate systemic bottlenecks in all terminal processes, including check-in, security, baggage handling, and vessel turnaround.
• Develop and implement a real-time operational dashboard using critical state variables (e.g., passenger dwell time, queue velocity, resource utilization) to ensure total system observability.
• Design and implement scalable operational plans and resource models that allow the terminal to absorb demand shocks and handle peak loads with efficiency.
• Own, evolve, and champion the shore-side Safety Management System, ensuring it exceeds all regulatory requirements and fosters a culture where safety is understood as a non-negotiable standard.

2. Guest Experience & Communication Architecture

• Architect the end-to-end passenger information and wayfinding strategy to create an intuitive environment that minimizes cognitive load and requires little effort to navigate.
• Build and own the definitive crisis communication and service recovery playbook, transforming operational disruptions into opportunities to build passenger trust through transparency.
• Implement and leverage robust guest feedback systems (NPS, surveys, direct feedback) to create a tight, actionable feedback loop for continuous improvement.

3. Leadership, Team & Financial Ownership

• Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing, high-cohesion team of operational leaders (Terminal Managers) and frontline staff, fostering a culture of decentralized problem-solving and proactive communication.
• Hold full P&L responsibility for all shore-side operations, using the budget as a strategic tool to model trade-offs and build data-driven cases for capital investments.
• Manage all key external relationships with vendors and service partners to ensure clean, predictable operational interfaces.

Qualifications & Mindset

We are seeking an experienced operator who has been tested in high-consequence operational environments.

Required Experience:

• 8+ years of progressive leadership experience in a complex, 24/7 operational environment (e.g., aviation, marine, large-scale logistics, major venue management).
• Demonstrated success building and leading teams of managers, with a proven track record of developing operational talent.
• P&L and budget management responsibility, with experience building and defending compelling cases for capital expenditure.
• Direct experience liaising with and managing relationships with regulatory bodies (experience with Transport Canada is a significant asset).

Cognitive & Leadership Style:

• You instinctively deconstruct complex operational challenges into their component parts (stocks, flows, feedback loops) to identify the highest-leverage points for intervention.
• In a crisis, you are a calming, objective presence. You absorb immense pressure and conflicting information, creating clarity and decisive forward momentum.
• You don't seek perfect, unachievable solutions. You seek the optimal solution within a given set of constraints and can rigorously articulate the "why" behind your decisions.
• You are obsessed with improvement and hold yourself and your team to exceptionally high standards. You view the operational numbers as a direct reflection of your team's performance and system design.

Job Type: Full-time

Pay: $80,000.00-$90,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• Employee assistance program
• Extended health care
• Paid time off
• RRSP match
• Wellness program

Work Location: In person