Vice President, Meetings & Conventions & Events

Strategic Accountabilities :

Sales Strategy & Development : Develop and execute a comprehensive sales strategy focusing primarily on City Wide conventions and meetings, and events of various sizes and scopes to Vancouver.

Leverage the city's unique offerings and competitive advantages to drive revenue growth and exceed customer expectations.

Team Leadership and Mentorship : Lead and mentor a high-performing sales and services team, providing guidance, support, and resources to achieve Balanced Scorecard targets and drive customer satisfaction.

Foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, and excellence to maximize team performance and individual potential.

Stakeholder Engagement : Cultivate and maintain strong relationships with key stakeholders, including event organizers, clients, industry partners, and local businesses.

Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams to enhance Vancouver's reputation as a top-tier destination and drive collaboration across departments and stakeholders.

Market Analysis and Innovation : Stay abreast of industry trends, market dynamics, and competitor activities. Identify opportunities for innovation and differentiation to maintain Vancouver's competitive edge and capitalize on emerging market trends.

Meeting and Event Execution Excellence : Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams to ensure seamless execution of events, from initial inquiry to post-event evaluation.

Deliver exceptional experiences that drive customer satisfaction, loyalty, and repeat business.

Position Responsibilities :

Strategic Planning

• Collaborates with the SLT and leads the business planning process with Directors and Managers to ensure objectives, strategies and targets are consistent and in line with organizational directives.
• Works with the team to establish annual sales and service targets for each market initiative.
• Develops and manages an operational budget to ensure accountability for results in conjunction with resources invested including Destination Management Fund (DMF) initiatives.
• Responsible for department expenditures outside of individual Initiative budgets. Works with Initiatives teams to evaluate and make decisions on revenue generating opportunities with the business plans and budgets.
• Collaborates with lines of business within Destination Vancouver to achieve overall goals.

M&C Sales & Services

Leads the team to develop and implement sales and services strategies and tactics ensuring a focus on lead and room night generation and City Wides booked for the positive economic impact for Metro Vancouver.

Drives results through account management, account research, prospecting, business development, site inspections / FAMS and securing of referrals and bids from partners.

• Leads the M&C sales and services teams to convert tentative business to definite business through customer, member and partner relationship follow up and management to close sales.
• Works with the M&C Directors of Sales and Managers to reinforce objectives and strategies for the department, individual and team initiatives to drive visitor volume and spend.
• Leads formal communications with clients; site inspections, makes presentations and sales calls to secure member / community support for major bids.

Destination Events

• Oversees the events management strategy that aligns and improves macro sector coordination to maximize city capacity, seasonality, and existing and new event opportunities that represent a diverse global destination brand offering.
• Oversees partnerships with Vancouver’s event producers, Federal, Provincial government, City of Vancouver, Sport Hosting Vancouver and civic stakeholders to build and leverage a Team Vancouver approach to event management.
• Creates, manages, and communicates a triple bottom line approach to event impact.
• Tracks Vancouver’s competitiveness ranking against global cities for attracting and retaining major events.

Strategic Partnerships & Stakeholder Relationship

• Fosters relationships with tourism and non-tourism industry partners to drive business development activities and opportunities.
• Leads and maintains strong partnerships with, for example, the Vancouver Convention Centre (VCC), Destination Canada, Customer Advisory Board, the Vancouver Hotel Destination Association and other key stakeholders and partners.
• Attends and participates in Destination Vancouver Board of Director meetings and assists with Board Committees as required.
• Develops and enhances relationships with community stakeholders including Destination Vancouver Members, Board of Directors, government and other key partners.
• Acts as an industry leader on relevant Boards, Committees and other groups to support the M&C and Destination Events industry.
• Attends Membership workshops and industry speaking engagements as required.

Leadership

• Provides strong, effective and highly visible team leadership to develop a collaborative, creative and dynamic high performing team aligned with the organization’s objectives.
• Ensures that Team Members are equipped and motivated to contribute fully to the organization to the realization of the Purpose, Mandate, Values, goals and objectives defined in the organization’s strategic plan.
• Fosters the development of a strong culture and people development practices that focus on teamwork, innovation, continuous improvement, and customer service excellence.
• Involves and recognizes Team Members for identifying innovative approaches to enhance organizational excellence.

What are we looking for?

A leader who is passionate about Vancouver as a place to live, work, explore and visit.

Professional Experience

• 8 10 years of progressive experience in an innovative senior / executive strategic leadership role with demonstrated strategic leadership experience in a sales and marketing organization.
• Extensive understanding of the travel, destination and meeting and convention industry, experience with Destination Marketing or Management Organization (DMO) of a major world city.
• Demonstrated successful background in sales, marketing, brand management and public and media relations including the knowledge required to attract meeting and convention business to the destination.
• Extensive experience creating, managing and executing against departmental budgets.
• Experience with the dynamics of a member-based organization composed of a diverse group of stakeholders from traditional and emerging business sectors that share a vested interest in increasing the preferred visitors to Metro Vancouver.
• Extensive network of local, national and international contacts, clients and travel influencers.
• Knowledge of BestCities and other M&C local, national and international partners and affiliations.
• Leadership experience from within a variety of business sectors.
• Experience with a Board of Directors and governance as well as within a political environment.
• Experience in developing and implementing strategic, visionary goals to attain buy-in to those goals from a variety of constituencies both inside and outside the organization.
• Entrepreneurial and creative background, open to new ideas and new ways of doing things as well as embraces compromise when operating in an environment that serves broad and diverse constituencies.
• Knowledge of Metro Vancouver is a significant advantage.

Proven Skills

• Strategic leadership including the ability to motivate and coach teams to excel and drive business; superior track record with building and growing high performing teams.
• Foster a positive work culture with strong values; an outstanding role model within an organization.
• Strong innovative and creative outlook.
• Superior verbal, written, and business presentation skills.
• Strong negotiation and mediation skills.
• Ability to establish, prioritize and accomplish goals.
• Entrepreneurial perspective, self-starter, ability to multi-task, highly driven.
• Make sound decisions, meet deadlines, take direction, and attention to detail.
• Extensive experience with strategy and business planning and implementation.
• Strong technology aptitude and a good working knowledge of Microsoft applications and CRM.

Education

Post-secondary education in a related field and / or equivalent experience.

Who are we?

Destination Vancouver is one of the world’s most dynamic destination management organizations, delivering on a mandate of destination development and promotion that positions Vancouver as a must-visit global destination.

Our purpose is to transform our communities and our visitors through the power of travel. This underpins everything we do and how we communicate with potential clients, engage with partners, and support our 800+ members.

Destination Vancouver has a fabulous product and a powerful brand. Our success is measured through the triple-bottom-line approach, which equally emphasizes people, the planet, and prosperity.

As a private, not-for-profit business association, our continued relevancy is based on supporting our industry, responsibly and sustainably managing the destination, and building a competitive global destination brand.

What we offer :

This role is based in Destination Vancouver’s corporate office with proximity to transit and downtown amenities.

We are proud to offer a competitive total rewards program including 4 weeks’ vacation (20 days) to start, an annual incentive / recognition program, extended health care benefits, health spending account, personal spending account, matching Group RRSP program, transit allowance or parking, training and development opportunities, and a flexible work environment.

Starting salary range from : $175,000 - $195,000

Destination Vancouver believes in and provides a diverse, equitable, and inclusive work environment.

How do we connect?

If you have the professional experience and skills and are an enthusiastic and strategic leader, we invite you to apply for this exciting position.

Please send your resume and cover letter to [email protected]. The deadline to apply is May 17, 2024.