Commercial Director, LIONS Advisory (Mat Leave cover)

Informa Group Plc.; London; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job description

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Company Description

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 brands like Cannes Lions, Black Hat, Money20/20 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.

Job Description

We're looking for a Commercial Director to join our team as part of our Advisory function. This role is a fixed term contract to cover a maternity leave period. This would suit someone already working within a senior commercial position at Informa Festivals / Informa who is looking to gain valuable experience as a Commercial Director.

Your Role:

• You are a customer obsessed and commercially driven leader with a clear vision and first rate sales performance. You have a strong background in commercial business leadership and consultancy with a proven track record and experience in leading large-scale, high performing teams.
• You have direct experience in designing and implementing end to end sales strategies with a strong focus on consultancy, transformational programmes and market leading solutions in order to meet stretching commercial objectives. You are intimately familiar with the global marketing communications landscape and have an impressive client-side rolodex.
• You are able to identify customer needs, take a consultative approach and use insight to shape, scale and deliver compelling and consistent results across multiple programmes for global brands that grow and retain business.

Key Accountabilities

Sales Strategy
• Execute the year-round, long-term sales and growth strategy for LIONS Advisory.
• Deliver the vision and sales strategy for the cross-brand LIONS Advisory business pillar, including structure, systems, processes, culture, and commercial growth pathways.
• Continue the integration of the LIONS cross-brand Advisory sales offering, maximising growth potential through world-class customer planning and account management.
• Work alongside the Lions Advisory Business Lead to create a go-to-market strategy and narrative for key products that align with the broader LIONS Advisory strategy.
• Action an existing commercial strategy, including targets, sales enablement, and sales proposition, and refine/edit as appropriate as the year progresses.

Commercial Growth
• Oversee the commercial performance of the LIONS Advisory business line, focusing on ambitious growth targets.
• Drive new business growth through a deep understanding of customer and market needs and effective leadership of global commercial teams.
• To achieve this, you will establish: A deep understanding of the business's commercial drivers, a clear sales and marketing program to drive the sales funnel with defined and tracked metrics and a world-class key customer account capability.

Product Growth
• Work with the LIONS Advisory brands (including but not limited to Cannes Lions, Contagious, WARC, Effie and future acquisitions), and action/build the appropriate go-to-market sales plan and strategy.
• Bring customer insight designed to evolve the proposition to ensure LIONS Advisory products and services are recognised as relevant and market-leading.

Sales Excellence and Reporting
• Provide regular reporting, anticipate and mitigate risks and build and maintain strong pipe. Present this each week to the VP, Advisory and FD, Advisory. Deputise in divisional trading meetings where appropriate. Lead on the creation of the BCR each week.
• Build, retain and grow a dynamic, consultative sales team designed to accelerate the growth of the LIONS Advisory business.
• Introduce and embed a sustainable sales funnel, optimising team structure and processes for the global consultancy offering.
• Achieve ambitious new business and retention targets, ensuring superior customer experience (NPS) across all product deliveries.

Qualifications

• You are an experienced professional with a background in growing, retaining, and motivating talented teams, as measured by staff engagement surveys and commercial performance.
• You provide and execute on clear and compelling sales strategies and plans and achieve buy-in from senior stakeholders and team members.
• You establish widespread team buy-in and support for your plans.
• You are able to lead team integration across diverse brand teams.
• You create clear commercial strategies and targets, and collaborate with functional stakeholders to bring them to life.
• You are fact-based, clear, decisive, and consistent, and always provide sound reasoning.
• You are able to switch easily between creative thinking and strategic planning mode.
• You are able to manage the macro issues but also attend to detailed tasks effectively.
• You own problems, are accountable, and bring solutions.
• You have a growth mindset, a can-do attitude and you deliver consistent results.

Additional Information

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 LifeAt.Informa.com.

Our benefits include:

• Freedom & flexibility: colleagues rate us highly for the flexibility and trust they receive and most of us balance time in the office with time working remotely.
• 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.

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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