Head Economist, Marketplace Strategy (Dispatch & Pricing)

Company Description

About Grab and Our Workplace

Grab is Southeast Asia's leading superapp. From getting your favourite meals delivered to helping you manage your finances and getting around town hassle-free, we've got your back with everything. In Grab, purpose gives us joy and habits build excellence, while harnessing the power of Technology and AI to deliver the mission of driving Southeast Asia forward by economically empowering everyone, with heart, hunger, honour, and humility.

Job Description

Get to Know the Team

We are the architects of the marketplace economy. We design the blueprints, incentives, and clearing mechanisms that power the platform. We combine rigorous economic theory with data science to solve the fundamental coordination problems of the on-demand economy—balancing supply, demand, and price in real-time.

We do not just analyze the market; we shape it. We foster a culture where you have the freedom to explore. We balance the optimization of our current systems with a goal of solving the open-ended, foundational questions to define the next horizon of our growth. We want to leave a lasting impact on the ecosystem of drivers, merchants, and passengers who rely on our equilibrium every day.

Get to Know the Role

As the Head Economist for Marketplace Strategy, you will be the architectural lead for the logic that powers our Dispatch and Passenger Pricing systems. You sit at the intersection of economic theory, data science, and commercial strategy. You will lead a high-performing team to solve complex coordination problems, ensuring our marketplace remains balanced, efficient, and profitable.

Unlike a pure research role, you will be a strategic lead in your domain. You will translate causal models into product roadmaps, influence senior leadership, and shape the long-term strategy for how we allocate rides and price our services across the region.

You will report to Head of Group Marketplace & Econs and base on site in our Petaling Jaya office, Malaysia.

The Critical Tasks You Will Perform

1. Strategy & Domain Stewardship

• You will architect Marketplace Mechanisms: Own the economic logic behind our core Dispatch (batching, allocation) and Passenger Pricing engines. Design incentive frameworks and clearing mechanisms that ensure market health.
• You will shape the Roadmap: Own the strategic direction of our tech roadmap within your domain, using data-driven insights and hyper-local market understanding to define future priorities.
• You will influence & Stakeholder Management: Provide strategic advice to country heads and functional leaders. Distill complex economic concepts into simple, actionable mental models to drive executive decision-making.

2. Team Leadership & Development

• You will build & Scale: Lead, mentor, and grow a team of economists and data scientists. Foster a balancing technical rigor with personal career development.
• You will drive Quality: Guide the team in applying experimental methods and structural modeling to ensure our biggest business bets are backed by rigorous, causal evidence rather than mere correlation.
• You will manage Workload: Prioritize the team's research agenda to handle the most critical marketplace "unknowns"—from long-run market dynamics to system efficiency frontiers—ensuring high morale and impact.

3. Technical Strategy & Innovation

• You will bridge Theory and Reality: Oversee the translation of theoretical economic models into real-world applications within our dispatch and pricing algorithms.
• You will advanced Analytics: Maintain oversight of the team's use of causal inference, structural modeling, and machine learning to decode complex user/partner behaviors.
• You will experimentation: Design and lead high-stakes A/B testing and quasi-experimental frameworks to optimize dispatch logic and price elasticity, ensuring we move beyond simple metrics to understand "why" users make choices.

Qualifications

What Essential Skills You Will Need

Essential Experience

• Leadership: Demonstrated experience building relationships across functional teams and leading a group of independent technical contributors.
• Strategic Depth: Ability to "see the forest for the trees," breaking down ambiguous, multi-year marketplace problems into manageable pieces.
• Communication: Good storytelling and presentation skills; comfortable presenting to senior stakeholders and capable of gaining buy-in during high-pressure meetings.
• Relevant Background: experience in marketplace design, pricing strategy, or economic consulting, within a high-velocity tech environment.

Technical Skills

• The Academic or Professional Foundation requires an advanced degree in Economics or a related quantitative field. We prefer a Master's or PhD, though we equally value equivalent, high-level professional experience that one has acquired. This experience is in applying rigorous economic logic to real-world marketplace systems.
• Causal Inference: Expertise in quasi-experimental methods (such as difference-in-differences or regression discontinuity) to decode complex behaviors and move beyond correlation.
• Data Proficiency: Good command of SQL and statistical programming (R or Python) to work with complex, high-velocity datasets.

Additional Information

Life at Grab

We care about your well-being at Grab, here are some of the global benefits we offer:

• We have your back with Term Life Insurance and comprehensive Medical Insurance.
• With GrabFlex, create a benefits package that suits your needs and aspirations.
• Celebrate moments that matter in life with loved ones through Parental and Birthday leave, and give back to your communities through Love-all-Serve-all (LASA) volunteering leave
• We have a confidential Grabber Assistance Programme to guide and uplift you and your loved ones through life's challenges.
• Balancing personal commitments and life's demands are made easier with our FlexWork arrangements such as differentiated hours

What We Stand For at Grab

We are committed to building an inclusive and equitable workplace that enables diverse Grabbers to grow and perform at their best. As an equal opportunity employer, we consider all candidates fairly and equally regardless of nationality, ethnicity, religion, age, family commitments, physical and mental impairments or disabilities, and other attributes that make them unique.