Brand Director

Do you have the skills of a great conference producer, but would like to have more ownership of your products and commercials in a dynamic, ambitious and fast paced company?

Are you currently evaluating your next step in Conference Production career, and interested in a wider remit and influence including ownership and strategic direction of portfolio of events, and gaining a more holistic understanding of running a business? If so, our Brand Director opportunity at Hanson Wade could be the perfect opportunity to accelerate your portfolio, business and people skills.

We have a very exciting opportunity of Brand Director position for an experienced Senior Conference Producer/ Portfolio Manager who is seeking to quickly scale their own portfolio and team, diving feet first into one and will in turn support the accelerated growth of our fastest growing, emerging pillars.

The successful candidate will:

• Drive the overall profitability of P&L(s) within the business. You’ll have multiple P+L responsibility to both generate new launches, as well as grow established repeat events

• Set strategic direction on both portfolio and product level through established assets and identifying launch opportunities within your area with robust validation and analysis

While prior experience in producing events in these specific sectors is not a prerequisite, a background in engineering and/or life science is desirable. However, most importantly, we value an ambitious, entrepreneurial individual with a natural passion for research and a thirst to gain broader business operational and managerial knowledge.

We will provide a robust Brand Director Qualification training programme as part of your induction and onboarding to embed our core principles of Validation and Production Lifecycle Management, Portfolio and People Management with you. This holistic training programmes include modules such as Topic Generation, Validation, Product Growth Strategy, Leadership, P&L financials.

Responsibilities include:

• Accountable for delivering the yearly commercial result and budgeted product load

• High level of tactical event execution with strategic direction

• Robust seed idea generation and validation with our Hanson Wade process framework to create more product opportunities

• Strengthen our existing portfolio, or organically create your own, to maximise our market penetration in one of our operating sectors, either Life Science, Construction or HR

• Generate cross-functional buy-in with clear communication and adherence to our internal process

• Support departmental training and development programme

• Potential people responsibilities based on experience

Hanson Wade Group has an industry leading construction, life sciences and HR conference production team with the remit to discover, develop and nurture new conference ideas in emerging fields – with the ultimate goal to building leading brands for specific communities. No prior experience in producing events in these specific fields is necessary, but a background in engineering is desired. However, most importantly, we are seeking an ambitious individual with a natural passion for research and a thirst for business. This role offers the opportunity to accelerate your career rapidly and gain a broad understanding of business issues in the world today.

What a successful candidate needs:

• 2 years + B2B conference production experience, with proven production skills across a variety of products, including launch and repeat events

• Understanding of high-quality production execution, advanced time management and organizational skills

• Demonstratable leadership and advanced project management skills to influence commercial results of your products

• Methodological approach such as data-driven analysis to devise growth strategy for repeat events

• Experience of strategic portfolio development and/or new event idea validation with commercial viability

• Excellent stakeholder management with communication and persuasion skills

• A natural entrepreneur who is interested in combining research and advance business skills to have true ownership of your conference products’ financials and commercial trajectory
• Experience of direct line management, hiring, training and development of at least one conference producer

Why Choose Us?

• Hybrid working (2 days in the office Tuesday & Thursday)

• Private health and life insurance

• Pension scheme

• 1 extra day of annual leave (up to 30 days) based on length of service

• Annual learning budget to support our employee’s own development

• Work from home equipment subsidies

• Retail, gyms, hospitality discounts through our Wader Hub

• Volunteer Day as we encourage our employee to support good cause and wider communities

• Sabbatical options after 2 and 5 years of service
• Competitive salary + profit share

Please note, this role requires full UK working rights and as the position requires regular travel to the United States you will need to be eligible for a US visitor’s visa.