Head of Travel & Expense

About Anthropic

Anthropic’s mission is to create reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems. We want AI to be safe and beneficial for our users and for society as a whole. Our team is a quickly growing group of committed researchers, engineers, policy experts, and business leaders working together to build beneficial AI systems.

About The Role

As Head of Travel & Expense, you will be the single owner of everything T&E at Anthropic: employee, guest and executive travel policy, private charter strategy, our Navan and Brex platforms, preferred hotel and airfare programs, duty-of-care (in partnership with Security), and Board-level reporting on executive expenses. You will report to the Head of Finance Operations and lead an initial team of two, with a mandate to build a best-in-class program.

This is a rare opportunity to come in as a true builder—inheriting solid operational foundations and a Claude-first culture pioneering AI-powered automation across Finance—and architect a T&E program worthy of a company shaping the future of AI.

Responsibilities

Strategy, Policy & Governance

• Design and own Anthropic's multi-year T&E strategy, evolving the function from operationally sound to best-in-class across policy, cost management, employee experience, and compliance
• Build and maintain a comprehensive global T&E policy framework—employee, executive, and international—embedding controls directly in systems to drive compliance at the point of booking
• Lead a cross-functional T&E governance structure with Finance, Security, Legal, HR, and Executive Assistants
• Design and enforce jurisdiction-specific T&E policy frameworks for international entities (EMEA, APAC), incorporating local per diem regulations, VAT reclaim eligibility, and country-level receipt/documentation requirements

Vendor Negotiations & Savings

• Own the corporate travel supplier program, driving material savings through hotel RFPs, airline corporate agreements, and preferred rate programs
• Manage strategic relationships with our T&E travel and expense systems, serving as the primary business contact for contract negotiations, product roadmap discussions, and AI feature development
• Track and report savings performance to Finance leadership and executives

Executive Travel & Compliance

• Serve as the subject matter expert for all executive travel needs, vendor selection, and utilization governance
• Partner with Legal and Finance on executive travel tax implications, business purpose documentation, and audit-ready recordkeeping

Platform & AI Automation (Claudification)

• Own and optimize Anthropic's T&E-related systems and platforms: configuration, policy rules, approval workflows, virtual cards, and ERP integrations
• Champion AI-powered automation across T&E—deploying Claude to audit transactions, flag policy exceptions, and automate reporting—consistent with Anthropic's Claude-first culture

You May Be a Good Fit If You Have

• 12+ years of T&E / corporate travel experience at a high-growth technology company, including 7+ years in a leadership or program ownership role with direct reports
• Demonstrated track record of cost savings: material, quantified outcomes from hotel RFPs, airline corporate agreements, and travel supplier negotiations
• Deep platform expertise in Navan and/or comparable TMC platforms, plus Brex or equivalent expense management tools
• Executive travel program ownership
• Strong cross-functional instincts: proven ability to partner across Security, Legal, HR, Finance, and C-suite executive teams and their supporting staff
• Duty-of-care and international compliance: background in travel risk management frameworks and T&E compliance across global entities (EMEA, APAC, LATAM)
• AI-curious builder mindset: experience deploying AI tools to automate T&E processes, or genuine enthusiasm for doing so—and comfort creating structure where none exists

Compensation & Logistics

The annual compensation range for this role is listed below.

For sales roles, the range provided is the role’s On Target Earnings (\