Head of External Operations

Wembley Park and the area surrounding Wembley Stadium has been through a period of significant transformation and is now a thriving London neighbourhood, with an exciting combination of a world-class events destination, new homes, iconic venues, great shops and workspaces. As our operating environment continues to evolve across the Wembley Park Estate and the complexity of our operations and stakeholder relationships increases, the Head of External Operations will lead operational activities between the Stadium and Quintain (the owners of Wembley Park), LB Brent and the transport stakeholder community to ensure the Football Association's operational and commercial interests are protected from and enhanced by the emerging development, whilst ensuring the highest levels of public safety and customer experience are maintained.

What will you be doing?

• Lead the strategic planning and operational delivery of Zone Ex around Wembley Stadium, ensuring a best-in-class safety, visitor and mobility experience, whilst minimising local disruption and maintaining compliance with relevant and forthcoming legislation/guidance, including but not limited to Martyn's Law and the Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds.
• Contribute to the Wembley Stadium (WNSL) long-term masterplan, identifying areas of future commercial growth, development opportunities within the WNSL footprint, and ensuring the venue remains a world-class destination.
• Lead the strategic and operational relationship with The Leader, Councillors, and senior leadership team at Brent Council to ensure all workstreams are delivered to the mutual benefit of Brent Council and the FA.
• Deliver and administer the agreed Estate Management Agreement (EMA) between The FA and Quintain enabling the safe delivery of events at Wembley Stadium.
• Design and deliver the Transport Master plan, identifying the travel options for all client groups, workforce and visitors to the venue, whilst maintaining excellent relationships with senior transport stakeholders.
• Responsibility for all operational planning meetings with all external stakeholders.
• Manage and coordinate the interface between internal and external stakeholders, and the integration of the Stadium into Wembley Park.
• Deliver a sofa-to-sofa experience for the venue's audience on match days through detailed coordination and collaboration with all external stakeholders and operators.
• Lead, attend, and arrange as necessary or defined in the EMA, meetings with all relevant parties to consider and review development proposals ensuring key decisions and action points are accurately recorded and agreed between respective parties.
• Represent the Football Association at all design/planning presentations.
• Ensure proposals are evaluated by subject matter experts to determine any potential commercial, operational or crowd safety issues that require resolution.
• Collate professional advice and approvals where required to 'sign off' on proposals.
• Identify and consult with key stakeholders to make them aware of development proposals (including phasing and timelines) to determine operational, commercial or crowd safety issues that need to be resolved to a mutually agreeable situation.
• Represent the Stadium/FA at local resident forums.
• Manage and coordinate the interface between internal functional areas and the resident groups, enabling operational planning teams to be responsive to the changing requirements of our local residents and the new operating environment.

What are we looking for?

Essential for the role:

• Highly experienced and qualified project manager.
• Experienced in major event planning, delivery and incident management.
• Experience of multi-stakeholder management in an event and wider estate environment.
• Experience of leading teams to deliver tight and immovable deadlines.
• Significant experience in delivering mobility plans and external operations for events, tournaments or venues.
• Experience of budget control and delivering to service specifications.
• Proven communication skills and ability to deliver quality written reports.
• Accustomed to working with a high level of corporate and public scrutiny.
• Good understanding in Crowd Management and modelling.
• Good understanding of current planning law and policy.

Beneficial to have:

• Open, with high integrity and a positive can-do attitude.
• Excellent negotiation and relationship management skills.
• Ability to co-ordinate numerous stakeholders and to work in partnership.
• Ability to assimilate with other FAs and to ensure an integrated approach to planning.
• Pragmatic and practical with a clear eye on solutions.
• Prepared to take accountability and to make decisions.
• Good influencer and communicator.
• Flexible & adaptable through organisational growth.
• Resilient & positive through change.
• Analytical and organised.
• Approachable and friendly.
• Ability to promote and foster a team culture where values such as excellence, hard work, service to stakeholders, honesty, integrity, and achievement are paramount.