Event Operations Manager

Fastmarkets is an independent commodity pricing and information organisation with over 600 staff. We are fuelled by values that bring us all together and are united by a collective passion to make a difference. We are supported by a working model that is based on a hybrid approach that allows each of us to balance home and office working while encouraging effective collaboration and accountability.

Fastmarkets is the most trusted Price Reporting Agency (PRA) in the metals, mining, agriculture, forest products, and energy transition markets. Our price data, forecasts, and market analyses give our customers strategic advantage in complex, volatile, often opaque markets. Our events provide forums for market participants to come together, trade, and talk through the critical issues of our times.

We are making a difference. Fastmarkets works to create transparent commodity markets through our reliable and trusted price data and market intelligence. The markets we serve are central to how economies work and are essential for our lives. By doing this, Fastmarkets helps our customers build a more sustainable world. We are built on a 130-year foundation while bringing a digital platform to market, combining the currency of trust with the power of digital.

Most importantly, we are fuelled by our teams that, across the globe, make the amazing possible. With a deep sense of purpose and belonging, we are building an extraordinary future – together. If you would like to help build the future, we hope you will join us on our journey.

Fastmarkets is owned by global private equity firm Astorg, a specialist investor in healthcare, software, technology, business services and technology-based industrial companies.

The Role

This is an exciting opportunity to become part of a high performing events operations team in a fast-growing global B2B conference business. You will join a team of 9 Operations and Customer Service specialists delivering events across the world to the very highest standard.

As an Operations Manager you will be responsible for driving the end-to-end logistics for both physical and digital events, ensuring we deliver best in class customer experiences for delegate and sponsor customers, aligned to theirs and our Fastmarkets objectives, translating these into proposed designs which utilise the latest in experience design thinking and event technologies. To do so you will work closely with the entire events team to co-design the intended delegate and sponsor experiences, provide clear design briefs to suppliers and then sharing intended designs for sign off to the wider team.

You will be responsible for managing the event delivery to the agreed budgeted costs and for sourcing and negotiating required venue contracts and suppliers. You will be required to provide accurate forecasts on costs and track these to budget using our internal system, Anaplan, to do so, highlighting any issues/ overspends early and providing mitigations in agreement with the wider team to keep your events on track for gross profit.

In addition, you will work closely with Sponsorship to come up with ideas in the event experience to drive revenues and fund innovative and elevated event experiences that create stand out customer value and elevate our events over and above competitors

You will be required to manage internal and external systems to support delivery of the events including: our registration platform, Cvent, digitals platforms such as but not limited to Swapcard and forecasting platform, Anaplan.

PRINCIPLE ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Venue Brief – Gathering accurate event requirements to source venues
• Event Brief – gather requirements from key stakeholders to inform event design
• Source venues for events in line with business requirements
• Review venue contracts, complying with relevant policies on risk and escalating issues as appropriate
• Sourcing, negotiating and liaising with suppliers for each event – including venues, audio-visual, documentation printing, signage, and on-site support staff
• Work with Sponsorship on ideas to fund elevated experiences and drive revenues
• Provide sponsors and exhibitors with logistics information through welcome packs and exhibition manuals
• Produce sponsorship collateral to fulfil contractual commitments
• Act as point of contact for speakers for all pre-event and onsite logistics
• Assisting and collaborating with the Customer Services Team with registering participants on Salesforce, invoicing, and general customer service duties onsite
• Contribute to regular project meetings for each event to ensure smooth communication within the team and aid the professional delivery of our events to external stakeholders
• Work closely with designers to produce required on site branding, signing off final designs in consultation with the wider project team and in line with print deadlines
• Creating a professional onsite environment for all participants and ensure all logistics, branding and safety requirements are met
• Act as the operational lead on-site, liaising with the venue and co-ordinating with the project team to ensure the smooth running of the event
• Preparation and maintenance of realistic forecasts and budgets and submission of complete and accurate accounts on strict deadlines
• Work with the Centre of Excellence to share, learn and help push event experience forward.

We recruit talented, dynamic people with diverse backgrounds and experiences, all united by a belief in our mission to provide the world’s leading and most trusted price reporting, events, and intelligence service for the markets we serve. We’re proud to be an equal opportunities employer and are committed to creating a fully inclusive workplace, where everyone feels able to participate and contribute meaningfully.

If you are open-minded, curious, resilient, solutions-oriented and committed to promoting equality, then read on...

KNOWLEDGE, EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

We are looking for an individual who is highly motivated, driven, and have a passion to be part of a fast-paced, successful team. Being a strong team player is also important as well as someone who is happy to work flexibly.

• Project Management – Strong skill set
• Extremely organised - able to multi-task, work on multiple events at the same time, excellent time management and prioritise while meeting deadlines
• Excellent communication skills – able to deal with people at all levels, good written communication and confident telephone manner.
• Experience design – Proven ability to deliver B2B physical and digital conferences to the highest standard
• Experience using digital platforms
• Good negotiation skills when procuring services
• Venue sourcing and negotiation of contracts of up to £0.5mill spends
• Budgets and forecasting – experience building costs budgets and managing forecasts accurately
• Process oriented with good attention to detail
• Good networker and collaborator – Strong team player, able to communicate clearly and influence stakeholders as well as manage customer relationships face to face
• Calm under pressure

If you're excited about the role but your experience, skills or qualifications don't perfectly align, we encourage you to apply anyway.

Our Values

Fastmarkets people come from all different walks of life. It’s this mix of brilliant personalities, experiences and insights that gives us that warm, open, and friendly culture you can feel as soon as you meet us. But however wonderfully different we all are, there are six things we all have in common – and they form our Fastmarkets values.

Created by our own employees to reflect some of the personal traits that Fastmarkets people have, our values are key to what makes our culture unique. They reflect who each of us are and they're embedded in everything we do. Our values are:

• METRICS DRIVEN. We use insights to improve our customers’ experience and our business performance
• ACCOUNTABLE. We are accountable to ourselves and those we work with: we keep our promises and get things done
• GROWTH MINDSET. This value enables us to be nimble to the changing realities and operate with a sense of urgency
• INCLUSIVE. We are inclusive and respectful, celebrating each of us and giving everyone a deep sense of belonging with the desire to bring their best self to work every day.
• CUSTOMER CENTRIC. We are customer-centric in all that we do
• COLLABORATIVE. We are collaborative, able to work across teams and capitalise on the diversity of intellect, perspectives, and experiences.