Sr. Manager, Growth Planning / Conferences Future Planning

About this role:

Responsible for preparing us for our future audience targets and the rapid growth of our Destination Conferences through long term venue and space planning. This includes ensuring program, audience and exhibitor needs can be accommodated in future venues, supporting capacity analysis, and supporting all key Conferences attributes.

The successful candidate will be motivated by the opportunity to influence change through creative problem solving. After thorough research, this candidate will bring something to the table: a new perspective, a novel idea, a suggestion that requires buy-in, and independently develop the idea and all contributing factors in a holistic way to drive stakeholder buy-in, and an outcome that could shape our business model.

The candidate will take ownership of the end-to-end processes for all conference growth related workstreams with a specific focus on stakeholder engagement and project management to offer clear pathways to completion.  The successful candidate will be motivated by the opportunity to influence change through creative problem solving and strategic analysis The candidate will align with key stakeholders to successfully manage the decision factors, research solutions, support data-driven analysis and support the future direction of the business. This person will drive the decision-making process, understanding what is required for the end-to-end conference experience for internal and external stakeholders & recommend effective solutions to allow for continued conference growth.

As part of onboarding process, within the first 12 months there will be a conference delivery requirement to lead the planning and on-site logistics of a Destination Conference. This will allow the candidate to gain critical business insights and demonstrate operational awareness of the broader functions this role is ultimately supporting for Gartner’s long-term growth planning strategy.

Primary responsibilities:

• Project manage specific growth workstreams in a global setting - supporting conferences in APAC, India, Brazil, Dubai, UK, Spain & North America.
• Development a project plan to drive timelines and track progress of workgroups contributing towards the workstream completion. Lead and hold team accountable for individual contributions.
• Research and engage with new venues and convention centers and identify campus-style and pavilion opportunities for exploratory searches of the best potential options within the program current and future state goals.
• Identify the opportunities aligned with the Future Growth Strategy for each unique conference and make targeted recommendations after thorough analysis of key decision drivers. Research all elements of the recommendation to prepare comprehensive executive briefs.
• Prepare experience reviews with detailed recommendations factoring in the attendee journey, sponsorship needs, catering, keynote delivery, revenue opportunities, hotel room demand, transportation, destination, airlift, etc.
• Catalog all findings in a standardized data set for comparison and leverage industry resources to expand knowledge base for potential options.
• Support capacity conference planning with Logistics team, learning in-year challenges to offer future-year solutions.
• Collaborate with several operations teams to support a tailored growth planning recommendation based on conference specific attendee behavior.
• Partner with the Capacity Planning & Venue Strategy Teams to build out a capacity directory for all venues globally including session rooms, meals, and pavilions to enable consistency in capacity planning and evaluating suitability of options.
• Project Manage the determination of - and progress tracking towards - the maximum capacity for all venues globally for our delivery model, taking into consideration attendee and exhibitor growth projections as well as venue contracting, in order to support long-term planning and venue selection.
• Analyze space utilization and attendee behavior of member lounges, 1:1s, and registration to determine optimal space requirements / capacity and enable effective space planning.
• Develop strong relationships with internal and external key stakeholders to ensure quality standard are maintained, company expectations are met, and lines of communication are open.
• Exceptional project management including ownership and adherence of timelines and templates and accurately track and evaluate results on overall project goals.

Qualifications:

• Experience: 5-7 years of professional business experience, with a focus in project management. Background in hospitality or in Conference and large-scale event management is essential.
• Qualifications: Being extremely detailed and forward thinking with strong project mana