Jobs

The Director of Commercial, is a new post, which will be responsible for leading our hospitality, front of house and marketing teams.

You will take responsibility for delivering efficient, quality driven, and cost-effective hospitality, visitor services and commercial activities as a key part of the Trust’s business. You will strive to significantly grow our conference, events, and wedding businesses across all our visitor locations. Working within our Executive Management Team you will help drive continual improvement of our visitor experience, enhance performance, and purpose innovations to maintain our five-star status.

You will have responsibility for the sales and delivery of all our onsite and on ship visitor events, including daytime conferences, evening dinners and meetings, and similar activities within a managed programme , including weddings, by deploying and supervising the events management, kitchen team and waiting staff. Your team will be thus be responsible for everything associated with running our hospitality experience, as well as ensuring that the required equipment and facilities are maintained to a high standard .

You will be responsible for the teams that manage admissions to our museums;
You will also be responsible for managing both the admissions team at Discovery Point and Verdant Works – this provides our guests with a consistently world-class service, and our marketing team – ensuring we maximize general admissions income, secondary spend, on line sales, group bookings and cruise line visitor numbers.

You will be responsible for maximising our carpark and letting income and will be able to turn your commercial flair to help the wider team manage tender processes and lead negotiations on ad hoc commercial deals to deliver best value for our charities’ limited resources.

About you
You will be passionate about customer experience and obsessed about exceeding expectations, have a track record of leading successful teams in a customer-centric environment. An established senior leader, ideally with at least ten years’ experience, you will perhaps be a General Manager, Director or MD/CEO of a smaller organisation. With an eye for detail and a commercial acumen to contribute at the senior management level, you will possess a robust business understanding,

You will be a collaborative player who will champion our values of kindness, trust, collaborative working, and respect and will work with colleagues across the business in delivering our One Team culture.

Visitor Services
• Manage and direct ticket safes/admissions at each site.
• Daily trading and opening and closing procedures at each site.
• Develop admissions reporting systems.
• Maximise revenue, including Gift Aid
• Maximise customer satisfaction
Retail/Letting/Hospitality
• Provide a first-class service to museum visitors, cafe and retail customers (including online), conference, events and wedding clients
• Seek to increase income generation within the catering and retail operations through maximising customer spend
• Manage buying, stock control and profitability of retail sales.
• Management and development of sales from e-shop within website.
• Responsible for the effective and efficient operation of hospitality offer at all venues including conference and business clients
• Maintain the profitable operation of all catering and bars including setting prices to achieve maximum profitability whilst remaining competitive
• Liaise with team members and outsourced suppliers to ensure that all catering operations are operating efficiently and that the food & services provided are of the highest quality and highest standards of customer care.
• Ensure that customer queries or complaints are dealt with appropriately in accordance with complaints policy.
• Acting as Designated Premises Manager for bars and cafe in venues and compliance with all requirements of our licenses
IT
Continuous improvement of all systems supporting your teams profitability including :-
• General admissions, done in conjunction with the Finance Team
• Stock control systems, done in conjunction with the Finance Team.
• Profitability reporting procedures within the Retail and Café teams.
• On-line booking systems for general admission, group bookings, and events

Visitor Development
• Assist towards the development of annual programme of public events for each site.
• Plan and manage public events.
• Develop promotional initiatives to grow visitor numbers.
• Respond proactively to market trends within your sphere of responsibility.
• Assist in development and delivery of the company-marketing plan.

Leadership & Staff Management
• Provide effective leadership, management and motivation of those directly reporting to you including; recruitment, induction, supervision, appraisal and ongoing training and development.
• Help encourage positive performance across the business as a whole
• Provide quarterly written performance reports for the Board.
• Attend Board Meetings, sub committee Meetings, executive management meetings and all internal and external meetings as required.
• Assist the Chief Executive in the preparation of relevant reports, submissions and service planning performance reviews
• Assisting in developing and implementing effective procedures and systems appropriate to the needs of the organisation.
Financial Management
• Providing effective budgetary control to ensure that income and expenditure targets are met and turnover and profit maximised.
• Overseeing the management of budgets for the Commercial and Marketing departments in accordance with agreed budgets set by the Chief Executive & Head of Finance & Admin.
• Work closely with the Chief Executive and the Head of Finance & Admin to devise strategies and set financial targets to maximise income potential and monitor expenditure.
• Maintain Organisational Assets Register.
• Contribute to the development and implementation of capital plans and projects
• Assist the Chief Executive and Head of Finance & Administration in financial forecasting and review.
General
• Take an active part in communicating and co-operating with other staff and departments.
• Follow all corporate guidelines, procedures and policies.
• Work in accordance with the company’s Equality and Diversity Policy.
• Be aware of and comply with, rules and legislation pertaining to Health & Safety at work.

Application Deadline: Monday 30/10/2023