Head of Business Events, Gold Coast

Highly strategic and partnership focused position
- Foster economic growth across the Gold Coast
- Formulate high impact and bold strategies

**About our client**:
Destination Gold Coast (DGC) is a not-for-profit, destination marketing organisation (DMO) that promotes the Gold Coast as a premier leisure and business events destination on behalf of more than 500 members, and the 26,000 businesses that contribute to the Gold Coast tourism levy.

DGC will soon become a part of a larger entity known as Experience Gold Coast (EGC), which will lead the Gold Coast Visitor Economy Strategy. EGC will also encompass Major Events, Arts & Culture, and International Education.

**About the role**:
DCG recognises the significance of fostering economic growth and building a thriving Gold Coast community through tourism. To support this vision, a new opportunity has emerged for the role of Head of Business Events, Gold Coast. The Head of Business Events (HBE) is a valuable member of the DGC executive team and is a strategic and forward-looking position that collaborates with C-suite executives and leaders from the City of Goad Coast, government tourism bodies (TEQ and TA), and Business Event industry partners to ensure that DGC delivers a strong economic impact for the City of Gold Coast.

As the Head of Business Events, you will be responsible for driving DCG's agility, adaptability, and responsiveness, with a strong focus on fostering a positive culture, effective governance, and management, as well as leveraging enabling technologies. You shall employ a data-driven approach to formulate high impact and bold strategies and activities to DGC and EGC objectives.

The Head of Business Events will play a pivotal role in integrating business events into the core of DGC's operations and in executing and reporting on the business events strategy and initiatives that attract and retain businesses and events.

**Key responsibilities include**:

- Development, implementation, measurement, and reporting of the organisation’s business events strategy.
- Provide leadership, accountability, business planning and line management to DGC’s Business Events team_._
- Lead the Development of a strategic business events plan to determine the investment, structure and resources required to accelerate business events as an economic driver for the Gold Coast.
- Oversee the development of DGC’s business events brand and reviews DGC’s value proposition to maintain a competitive advantage.
- Strengthen DGC’s capacity to pursue business development leads that increase visitation and expenditure for conferences and businesses in the Gold Coast.
- Partner with the Head of Destination Marketing and Experiences, Head of Business Capability, and Head of Stakeholders and Strategy, to develop and maintain strong relationships with business events industry partners and government.
- Develop and strengthen national and international business development relationships, focusing on business events with corporates and associations.
- Collaborate with industry partners to drive and support the growth of the Gold Coast as a business events destination.
- Lead the development of stakeholder engagement initiatives and incentives across the business.

**Key skills required**:

- Prior experience in tourism or destination development in the national and international marketplace in a senior management position demonstrating effective stakeholder management.
- Senior-level experience in leveraging opportunities and other cooperative trade investments with external stakeholders based upon sound data and analytics.
- Demonstrated ability to represent DGC externally and actively engage with key stakeholders to enhance DGC’s reputation and outcomes.
- Substantial understanding of the Australian and desirably the Queensland and Gold Coast business events industry, supported by an extensive network of industry contacts and relationships across key markets.
- Demonstrated leadership and team management capability in building collaborative teams that role model organisational cultural attributes.
- Demonstrated ability to think cross functionally and provide insight into how DGC’s purpose and strategic business event plans impact internal teams across the business and external stakeholders.
- Proven capacity to be agile and drive responsive business event planning and delivery that is innovative, managed budgets and delivered outcomes that positively impacted a destination, tourism sector or an organisation.
- Substantial understanding and experience in developing, leading, planning and managing a strategic business events portfolio and delivering against organisational objectives.

Thank you for your interest.