Venue Sourcing Specialist

Location: UK, London, Office, EUROPE

About Us: At BCD Meetings & Events (BCD M&E), we provide more than meeting and event planning services: we create connections that inspire, motivate and change behaviour for our customers. As the world’s most trusted and innovative meetings and events agency, BCD M&E cultivates a culture of people, passion and purpose to drive business forward. Headquartered in Chicago, with locations in 60+ countries across the world, BCD M&E’s team of 2,000+ people are committed to sustainability and driving success for our customers, our business and ourselves. Our values are at the heart of everything we do, and we look for people that want to be a part of something special, can rise to our standards and love to bring their unique perspective to the table.

We are looking for a Venue Sourcing Specialist to join our dynamic team in our London office. As an integral part of our venue search team, you will be responsible for providing operational ownership of key client relationships alongside mentoring and developing other team members delivering high quality end to end venue sourcing to our clients.

As a Venue Sourcing Specialist, you will:

• Take operational ownership of key client relationships, collaborating with the Customer Experience Manager / Account Management, understanding the client objectives, their strategic requirements and leading and delivering exceptional levels of service to proactively secure robust partnerships.
• Provide an end-to-end venue sourcing service – including understanding and collaborating with the client to shape the brief, sourcing of suitable venues and locations, negotiation of rates and other contractual terms, creation of proposals and any pre- and post-event support.
• Mentor and support other team members, ensuring that client objectives and messages are managed clearly and proactively throughout.
• Proactively support on client review meetings, ensuring that all client objectives and service levels are understood and consistently met or exceeded.
• Be suitably qualified in all relevant systems, and processes in line with your client requirements.
• Work with the BCD Meeting & Events finance team to ensure that all invoicing and financial matters are delivered to the client in a proactive and efficient manner.
• Continually develop excellent venue destination knowledge through building positive relationships with key supplier contracts, attending familiarisation visits, destination workshops and webinars.

Requirements:

• Proven UK and International Venue and Destination knowledge
• Excellent communication skills along with a calm, positive and collaborative approach
• Proven negotiating and contracting experience with external suppliers
• Comfortable dealing with people at all levels both face to face and by telephone / email
• Significant experience of working within a customer facing support environment
• MS Office skills including Excel, with experience of entering and extracting data from databases
• Flexible and proactive approach to work, able to juggle multiple priorities and projects with resilience under pressure with an ability and willingness to adapt to change

You might also have:

• Venue booking system experience
• Previous experience of using Cvent

Our Benefits for this role:

• Life Assurance x2 your annual salary
• Birthday day off
• Holiday Purchase Scheme - allowing up to 5 additional holidays days
• Discounted rates on Hotels & Travel
• Gym & Fitness Discounts
• Pension Scheme
• Company Sick pay

You should know:

• This is a hybrid role that requires 3 days a week in the London office
• The shift patterns for venue search are 9-5:30, 8:30-5 or 9:30-6 on a rotate basis, with an hours lunch break
• You may be required to travel to attend company meetings / events or familiarisation trips in the UK or Overseas

THE PERKS:

• Flexible Working: We believe that a flexible working environment is key to getting the best out of our teams. We will support you to work where you need to and when you need to, depending on how you work best.
• Room to Grow: Our line of work and business structure challenge our people in a way that inspires growth, with learning and development built into every role. We give individuals ownership over the direction and speed in which they grow.
• Everyone has a voice: We thrive on conversations that spark curiosity and empathy. No matter how big or how small, every voice is heard, considered and respected.
• Make your move: The diversity of roles across BCD M&E’s global locations means that our people often find new adventures during their time with us.

Our extensive benefits include comprehensive healthcare, retirement plans, continued education support, diverse work locations, travel and hotel discounts, volunteer and sustainability opportunities and a successful employee recognition program. We’re positive. You’ll love it. It starts from the top. Our leaders lead with positivity, believe in our people and trust us to do the right thing. There will always be support along your journey, in little and big ways.