Associate Director, Conferences Logistics

As an Associate Director, you will be responsible for leading a team of highly skilled operations professionals to flawlessly deliver a portfolio of complex, fast growing conferences which meet our financial goals. To be successful in this role you must learn and understand our corporate strategy and translate it into an operations strategy which delivers exceptional conference experiences for our customers. Your role is to guide the team’s decision making, delivering for today whilst planning for the future. 

What You Will Do:

• Lead operations strategy for regional conference portfolio in partnership with COEs.
  • Lead communication and collaboration across regional portfolio COE leaders.
  • Support conference teams to transition from the design and delivery of individual parts to intentionally crafting an end-to-end audience journey.
  • Drive consistency and innovation across the regional portfolio. 
  • Actively participate in key milestone reviews to ensure the team recommendations align with corporate strategy and meet the needs of the customer. 

• Recruit, retain and coach a team of agile, customer focused, operational experts.
  • Inspire confidence and provide clear direction.
  • Provide subject matter / functional expertise and guidance.
  • Ensure that team is leading the development of an end-to-end conference experience.
  • Drive initiatives which enhance the portfolio, deliver results against priorities and improve processes in planning and execution in partnership with strategic initiatives leader.
  • Build team infrastructure to scale and operate efficiently.

• Deliver for today while preparing for the future.
  • Develop detailed action plans to achieve growth including optimized space planning, capacity solutions, venue selection and transitions, and growth into new regions.
  • Lead strategy for conference growth solutions, direct and guide team to develop detailed plans for achieving growth and optimizing space  
  • Build strong relationships with venues and vendors, ensure that they are meeting our expectations and equipped to scale as our business grows  
  • Clearly understand and translate the needs of the audience.
  • Champion change and drive creative solutions.

• Overall responsibility for regional portfolio budgets including preparation, negotiations, accurate and timely monthly forecasts.
  • Collaborate with COE leaders to identify trends and regional impacts. 
  • Ensure team is accountable and responsible for the expenses they manage and understand the financial impact of the decisions they make 
  • Lead the team through investment process ensuring recommendations align with the overall strategy for the conference. 
  • Lead portfolio forecast reviews and participate in monthly forecast calls 
  • Understand risk and deviations to plan and make recommendations for corrective actions.  Partner with COE’s to mitigate risk.   

What You Will Need:

• Bachelor’s degree, preferred
• 10+ years Event Management experience
• Proven event operational skills including food & beverage, production schedules, budget management and event staffing
• Project management experience on detailed programs with multiple variables and dependencies
• Proven experience in managing agency and vendor partners
• Proven people management experience
• Strong interpersonal and relationship building skills especially with senior level professionals, cross-functionally and with agency partners
• Creative, innovative and strategic thinker with a strong attention to detail
• Strong financial management skills
• Motivated team player with desire to learn and grow.
• Excellent written/oral communication and presentations skills
• Demonstrated ability to adapt, implement and manage change and strive for continuous improvement.
• Ability to thrive in high pressure situations
• Confident decision maker 
• Ability to travel up to 20%, domestically & internationally

Who are we?

At Gartner, Inc. (NYSE:IT), we guide the leaders who shape the world.

Our mission relies on expert analysis and bold ideas to deliver actionable, objective business and technology insights, helping enterprise leaders and their teams succeed with their mission-critical priorities.

Since our founding in 1979, we’ve grown to 20,000 associates globally who support over 13,000 client enterprises in ~90 countries and territories. We do important, interesting and substantive work that matters. That’s why we hire associates with the intellectual curiosity, energy and drive to want to make a di