Head of Delegate Sales

Informa Festivals marks an exciting new chapter in B2B events, bringing some of the world's most influential creative, technology and business festivals together. We're combining prestigious events like Cannes Lions, Black Hat, Money20/20, GDC, and London Tech Week with cutting-edge marketing intelligence platforms and advisory services to deliver unmissable experiences and insights.

Our festival-led approach reimagines traditional B2B events, creating powerful, immersive experiences that drive innovation and industry advancement. Building on decades of expertise and powered by Informa's international reach, we're shaping the next generation of business festivals.

We're part of Informa, a global business with a network of trusted brands in specialist markets across more than 30 countries, and a member of the FTSE 100 who are #3 in Glassdoor's Best Places to Work 2025 UK list. 

The LIONS brand is probably most synonymous with Cannes Lions, The International Festival of Creativity, the definitive meeting place for the global creative communications and advertising community. It's five days of inspiration, aspiration, unlimited magic and potential. The Festival has been championing creative excellence since 1954 with the goal of providing a global destination and the definitive benchmark for creativity that drives progress.

LIONS is going through an exciting time as it's recently repositioned as The Home of Creativity, supporting those in the business of creativity at every step of their journeys with an extended portfolio of new advisory, learning and intelligence services. Our purpose is to drive progress through creativity for an incredibly diverse and talented global creative community.

You will join a team of change makers. The team's purpose is to champion change to create the most powerful global creative community and drive growth for the brand.

This role is based in our  5 Howick Place office.

Role overview 

As the Head of Delegate Sales  you will work closely with the Commercial Director and Head of Marketing - Cannes Lions Festival to create and deliver a global sales strategy and roadmap that will allow the Festival to achieve its ambitious revenue targets and long term growth plans. 

You will be responsible for driving global delegate pass sales, which has a key focus on emerging markets across LATAM, EMEA and APAC. You will have full ownership of the sales and commercial arm of the delegate sales strategy - leading a small, but high performing team working across multiple revenue streams. Responsible for the management of a team of 2-3 account managers.

This role will be also responsible for streamlining and advancing the sales process, working closely with internal marketing, data analytics, and reporting teams to optimize lead conversion.

Key accountabilities

• Responsible for delivering against, or exceeding, stretching annual revenue targets

• Assisting the creation and delivering of the Delegate Sales Strategy in close partnership with the Head of Marketing and Director of Commercial 

• Delivery of Delegates sales strategy across multiple pass types and regions, including achieving against a sales target  

• Ensuring consistent growth across the globe (with key target geographies) 

• Responsible for gathering market intelligence and customer feedback, and reporting this back to the business consistently 

• Ownership and management of regional stakeholders and key customer relationships

• Maintaining an inclusive, collaborative culture where high performance is recognised and inevitable

• Board-level performance reporting with emphasis on accurate forecasting from excellent pipeline management

• Coaching and development of junior sales executives  and management of overall team performance

• Ensuring optimal marketing & sales processes and systems are maintained including clear ways of working and use of Salesforce

• Responsible for being across market shifts and customer and competitor activity

• Building and maintaining exceptional internal stakeholder and business partner relationships

• Acting as a primary point of contact and brand ambassador for Lions (internally and externally) globally 

Skills, experience & qualifications required

• Proven experience in delegate or ticket sales, experience in a B2B events environment a plus  

• Credible leader who can represent themselves, the brand and Ascential in market

• Knowledge of the relevant market and ability to build strong stakeholder and customer relationships

• Proven experience in maintaining a culture of collaboration, success and high performance in region

• A sales process expert with excellent pipeline management capabilities and high proficiency in Salesforce

• Consistent ability to excel across multiple revenue streams with different business models

• Excellent communication skills - persuasive, confident and in control

• Flexible & agile worker - must be willing to travel globally throughout the year

We believe that great things happen when people connect face-to-face. That's why we work in-person with each other, or with customers and partners, three days a week or more. When you're not spending time together in one of our offices or other workplaces – like at an Informa event – you get the flexibility and support to work from home or remotely.

We work hard to make sure Life at Informa is rewarding, supportive and enjoyable for everyone. Here's some of what you can expect when you join us. But don't just take our word for it – see what our colleagues have to say 

Our benefits include:

• Great community: a welcoming culture with in-person and online social events, our fantastic Walk the World charity day and active diversity and inclusion networks
• Broader impact: take up to four days per year to volunteer, with charity match funding available too
• Career opportunity: the opportunity to develop your career with bespoke training and learning, mentoring platforms and on-demand access to thousands of courses on LinkedIn Learning. When it's time for the next step, we encourage and support internal job moves
• Time out: 25 days annual leave, rising to 27 days after two years, plus a birthday leave day and the chance to work from (almost) anywhere for up to four weeks a year
• A flexible range of personal benefits to choose from, plus company funded private medical cover
• A ShareMatch scheme that allows you to become an Informa shareholder with free matching shares
• Strong wellbeing support through EAP assistance, mental health first aiders, a healthy living subsidy, access to health apps and more
• Recognition for great work, with global awards and kudos programmes
• As an international company, the chance to collaborate with teams around the world

We're not solely focused on a checklist of skills. We champion energy and ambition and look for colleagues who will roll their sleeves up, join in and help make things happen. If it sounds like a match and you have most – although not all – of the skills and experience listed, we welcome your application.

If you would like to request reasonable adjustments or accommodations to assist your participation in the hiring process and, or in the advertised position, please inform the appropriate Talent Acquisition Partner for the role once they have been in touch. Your request will be reviewed and considered in confidence. At Informa, you'll find inclusive experiences and environments where all perspectives and backgrounds are welcomed. As part of this approach and our diversity and inclusion commitments, we are also formally an Equal Opportunities Employer. This means we base decisions on relevant qualifications and merit and do not discriminate on the basis of key characteristics and statuses, including all of those protected by law. Ask us or see our website for full information.

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