1. What is a Data Analyst at American Express Global Business Travel?

As a Data Analyst at American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT), you are stepping into a pivotal role at the intersection of corporate finance, global travel logistics, and enterprise data management. Amex GBT operates at a massive scale, managing the travel programs, expenses, and corporate meetings for thousands of global businesses. In this role, your primary objective is to transform complex, high-volume travel and expense data into actionable insights that drive efficiency for both internal stakeholders and external corporate clients.

Your impact will be felt directly in how corporate clients optimize their travel spend and how internal teams streamline their operations. You will often find yourself analyzing booking patterns, identifying cost-saving opportunities, and building reporting frameworks that senior leaders rely on to make strategic business decisions. Because the travel industry is highly dynamic, this role requires a sharp analytical mind capable of finding the signal through the noise of complex global datasets.

While the scale of the data is vast, the environment requires a realistic approach to technology. You will often work with a blend of modern business intelligence tools and established legacy systems. Success in this role means not only having the technical capability to manipulate data but also possessing the business acumen to navigate traditional enterprise architectures and deliver clear, high-impact recommendations to non-technical leadership.

2. Common Interview Questions

The following questions represent the types of inquiries you will face during the Amex GBT interview process. While exact questions will vary by team, these reflect the core patterns of technical and behavioral evaluation.

Technical & Data Manipulation

These questions test your hands-on ability to work with data, primarily focusing on Excel and SQL.

• Walk me through your process for cleaning a dataset that contains thousands of duplicate and misformatted entries.
• How would you write an SQL query to find the second highest travel spend by a corporate department?
• Explain how you use INDEX/MATCH and why you might prefer it over VLOOKUP.
• Describe a time you automated a repetitive reporting task. What tools did you use?
• How do you ensure data quality and accuracy before presenting a final report?

Business Case & Analytical Thinking

These questions evaluate your domain awareness and your ability to structure a business problem.

• If a client wants to reduce their overall travel spend by 10% next year, what data points would you analyze to make recommendations?
• How would you measure the success of a new corporate travel policy requiring employees to book flights 14 days in advance?
• What KPIs are most important when evaluating hotel vendor performance for a corporate client?
• Walk me through the case study you prepared. Why did you choose to highlight these specific metrics?

Behavioral & Stakeholder Management

These questions assess your cultural fit, resilience, and communication style.

• Tell me about a time you had to explain a complex technical concept to a non-technical stakeholder.
• Describe a situation where you had competing priorities from two different senior leaders. How did you handle it?
• Tell me about a time you had to work with outdated or limited technology to achieve a goal.
• How do you handle a situation where the data contradicts a senior manager's established belief?
• Why are you interested in the corporate travel sector, and specifically Amex GBT?

3. Getting Ready for Your Interviews

Preparation for the Amex GBT interview process requires a balanced focus on technical execution and stakeholder communication. Your interviewers will be looking for candidates who can seamlessly transition from crunching numbers in a spreadsheet to presenting a strategic business case to senior management.

Focus your preparation on the following key evaluation criteria:

Technical Proficiency & Tool Mastery You must demonstrate strong capabilities in core data manipulation tools, particularly Microsoft Excel and foundational SQL. Interviewers will evaluate your ability to clean, process, and analyze datasets quickly and accurately. You can show strength here by efficiently navigating technical assessments and explaining your data-cleaning methodologies clearly.

Business Acumen & Case Structuring Amex GBT heavily values your ability to apply data to real-world business problems. You will be evaluated on how you structure ambiguous prompts, identify key performance indicators (KPIs), and draw logical conclusions. Strong candidates will frame their technical answers within the context of corporate travel, cost optimization, or operational efficiency.

Stakeholder Management & Communication As an analyst, you will frequently interact with senior leadership and cross-functional teams. Interviewers will assess your executive presence and your ability to distill complex data into simple, actionable narratives. You can demonstrate this by answering behavioral questions concisely and tailoring your communication style to the seniority of your interviewer.

Adaptability & Resilience The corporate travel sector involves navigating complex organizational structures and, at times, legacy technological environments. Evaluators look for patience, adaptability, and a proactive problem-solving mindset. Highlighting past experiences where you successfully drove results despite technical limitations or process ambiguities will set you apart.

4. Interview Process Overview

The interview process for a Data Analyst at Amex GBT typically spans several stages, blending standard behavioral screening with rigorous practical assessments. Your journey will generally begin with an initial HR screening call to align on expectations, availability, and basic qualifications. From there, you will move into a hiring manager interview, which focuses heavily on your past experience, your approach to data, and your cultural fit within the specific team.

As you progress deeper into the process, expect a highly practical evaluation phase. This frequently includes a take-home or live case study paired with an Excel-based technical test. Amex GBT emphasizes real-world application, so this stage is designed to simulate the exact type of analytical work you will perform daily. The final rounds typically involve a series of conversations with various senior leaders across the organization, testing your ability to communicate insights and align with the broader strategic vision of the company.

While the process is thorough, candidate experiences with pacing and scheduling can vary. Some candidates report a highly structured and engaging sequence of leadership interviews, while others note that coordination with HR can occasionally require proactive follow-up. Approach the process with patience, and be prepared to advocate for your own timeline if necessary.

This visual timeline outlines the typical progression from the initial recruiter screen through the technical assessments and final leadership rounds. Use this to anticipate when you will need to pivot from high-level behavioral preparation to deep, focused technical practice (especially for the case study and Excel test). Note that the exact number of leadership interviews may vary depending on the specific team and location.

5. Deep Dive into Evaluation Areas

To succeed in the Amex GBT interviews, you must understand exactly how the team evaluates technical and behavioral competencies. The process leans heavily on practical application rather than theoretical knowledge.

Technical Assessment & Excel Mastery

Because you will be handling complex financial and travel data, your foundational technical skills must be sharp. Amex GBT relies heavily on advanced Excel for day-to-day reporting and ad-hoc analysis, often more so than advanced programming languages.

• Advanced Data Manipulation – Expect to be tested on your ability to merge, clean, and analyze datasets using VLOOKUPs, XLOOKUPs, INDEX/MATCH, and complex nested IF statements.
• Pivot Tables & Summarization – You must be able to quickly aggregate large datasets into readable summaries that highlight key trends.
• Data Cleansing – You will likely face scenarios where the provided data is messy, incomplete, or incorrectly formatted, requiring you to standardize it before analysis.
• Legacy Systems Knowledge – While less frequently tested via live coding, demonstrating an understanding of how to extract data from older relational databases will be viewed as a strong asset.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Given this raw dataset of corporate flight bookings, use Excel to identify the top three clients by total spend, accounting for cancellations."
• "Walk me through how you would automate a weekly reporting process that currently requires manual data extraction from three different sources."

Case Study & Business Logic

The case study is a critical hurdle in the Amex GBT process. It evaluates not just your math, but your business judgment. You will be given a scenario relevant to corporate travel—such as optimizing a client's hotel spend or analyzing the financial impact of a new travel policy.

• Hypothesis Generation – How quickly can you identify the root cause of a business problem based on a brief prompt?
• Metric Selection – Choosing the right KPIs (e.g., average ticket price, adoption rate of preferred vendors, year-over-year spend variance).
• Actionable Recommendations – Translating the numbers into a clear "so what?" for the business.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "A major corporate client has seen their travel expenses increase by 20% this quarter despite fewer trips being taken. How would you investigate this?"
• "Present your findings from the provided dataset and recommend three policy changes the client should implement to reduce costs."

Stakeholder Management & Leadership Fit

Because you will be interviewing with various senior leaders, your ability to communicate effectively is paramount. The team wants to see that you can hold your own in a room with directors and VPs, answering their questions confidently and succinctly.

• Executive Communication – Summarizing complex technical roadblocks into business terms.
• Pushback and Influence – How you handle disagreements with stakeholders regarding data accuracy or project timelines.
• Cross-functional Collaboration – Demonstrating how you gather requirements from non-technical teams like Account Management or Finance.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Tell me about a time you had to present a challenging data finding to a senior leader who disagreed with your conclusion."
• "How do you prioritize ad-hoc data requests from multiple different department heads?"

6. Key Responsibilities

As a Data Analyst at Amex GBT, your day-to-day work will revolve around making sense of massive streams of corporate travel data. You will be responsible for extracting data from various internal databases, cleaning it, and developing comprehensive reports that track client spend, compliance with travel policies, and overall operational efficiency. Much of your time will be spent building and maintaining dashboards, as well as fulfilling complex ad-hoc data requests from internal teams.

Collaboration is a massive part of this role. You will work closely with Account Managers who need your data to conduct quarterly business reviews with corporate clients. You will also partner with Finance to reconcile travel spend and with Product Operations to ensure data integrity across booking platforms.

You will frequently be tasked with driving specific analytical initiatives, such as identifying anomalies in booking behaviors or forecasting future travel volumes based on historical trends. Because Amex GBT utilizes a mix of modern and legacy technologies, a key responsibility will also involve bridging the gap between older data storage systems and modern reporting outputs, ensuring that leadership always has access to accurate, timely information.

7. Role Requirements & Qualifications

To be a competitive candidate for the Data Analyst position, you must possess a specific blend of technical hard skills and consultative soft skills.

• Must-have technical skills – Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel (macros, complex formulas, pivot tables) is non-negotiable. You must also have strong foundational SQL skills for querying relational databases.
• Nice-to-have technical skills – Experience with BI visualization tools like Tableau or Power BI, and familiarity with Python or R for data automation.
• Experience level – Typically, successful candidates have 2 to 5 years of experience in data analysis, financial analysis, or business intelligence, preferably within a corporate, B2B, or travel industry context.
• Soft skills – Exceptional verbal and written communication skills are required. You must have the ability to manage up, interact confidently with senior leaders, and exhibit the patience required to navigate complex organizational processes.

8. Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How technical is the interview process for a Data Analyst at Amex GBT? The technical bar is heavily focused on practical business application rather than algorithmic coding. You should expect rigorous testing in advanced Excel and data manipulation, along with business case studies, rather than LeetCode-style Python or algorithmic questions.

Q: Will I be working with cutting-edge technology? While Amex GBT utilizes modern BI tools, candidates should be prepared to work within a mature enterprise environment that includes legacy systems. Flexibility and the ability to extract value from older technologies are highly valued traits here.

Q: How should I prepare for the interviews with senior leadership? Focus on the "big picture." Senior leaders care less about the specific SQL joins you use and more about how your insights drive revenue, save costs, or improve client retention. Practice summarizing your past projects in a "Situation, Task, Action, Result" (STAR) format with a heavy emphasis on the business outcome.

Q: What is the typical timeline from the initial screen to an offer? The timeline can vary significantly. Some candidates move through the process in a few weeks, while others experience delays in scheduling, particularly when coordinating with multiple senior leaders. Remain patient and maintain polite, proactive communication with your recruiter.

9. Other General Tips

• Master the Case Study Format: When presenting your case study, always start with the executive summary. Give them the bottom-line recommendation first, and then walk through the data that supports it.
• Prepare for Legacy Tech Questions: Do not show frustration if interviewers mention older tools or manual processes. Instead, frame your experience as an ability to drive modern insights regardless of the technological constraints.
• Over-Communicate with HR: If you experience delays or unresponsiveness regarding scheduling, do not assume you have been rejected. Send polite follow-up emails to keep the momentum going.
• Ask Strategic Questions: When interviewing with senior leaders, ask questions that show you understand the macroeconomic factors affecting corporate travel (e.g., remote work trends, sustainability initiatives, or inflation impacts on travel budgets).

10. Summary & Next Steps

Securing a Data Analyst role at American Express Global Business Travel is an excellent opportunity to influence the operational mechanics of global corporate travel. The position offers the chance to work with massive datasets and directly impact the financial strategies of major global corporations. By demonstrating a strong blend of technical precision—particularly in Excel and data manipulation—and sharp business acumen, you can position yourself as a highly valuable asset to the team.

This compensation data provides a baseline expectation for the Data Analyst role. When interpreting this, remember that total compensation may include base salary, annual performance bonuses, and standard corporate benefits. Leverage this information to ensure your expectations align with the market and the company's structure during the final offer stages.

As you move forward, focus your preparation on practical data manipulation and executive-level communication. Practice your case studies, refine your technical speed, and prepare thoughtful questions for the leadership team. For more tailored insights, mock questions, and peer experiences, be sure to explore additional resources on Dataford. You have the analytical foundation necessary to succeed—now it is time to showcase your ability to drive real business value.