Commercial Director, Commercial Delivery (13 month FTC)

The Commercial Director will be responsible for leading the UK Finance Commercial Delivery team covering Events, Training and Commercial Partnerships. The team are responsible for delivering excellent services from global flagship events and ‘best in class’ training and development opportunities for professionals at all levels across the banking and finance sector, through to developing and maintaining a pipeline of commercial opportunities. There is a clinical focus on delivering demonstrable value to members and sustainable commercial revenue growth for UK Finance.

Through the leadership of the Commercial Delivery team, collaboration with colleagues across the business and engagement with members, partners and other stakeholders, the Commercial Director is responsible for ensuring that events, training, commercial partnerships and products are delivered to time and to budget, with both member value and commercial return being optimised.

The opportunity: With over 300 members across banking and finance and 240 associate members - including many of the most recognised leaders in the technology, legal and advisory sectors - UK Finance is uniquely placed to bring together leading experts and service providers across regulation, conduct and financial understanding. Combining a strong industry reputation for high quality content and services, with a purpose to drive capability and professionalism across the sector, UK Finance sets the benchmark for training, events and additional services while offering member firms unrivalled value for money.

The portfolio includes workshops, virtual and in-person technical conferences, peer-to-peer learning experiences, qualifications, roundtables, lunches, dinners, networking events, on-demand learning and webinars for thousands of delegates each year. In addition, UK Finance offers invaluable services to members through our relationships with trusted partnerships and through the provision of our own products and services.

Leading an established team, the role-holder will be responsible for overall programme design, working collaboratively with colleagues across the business on content, budgeting, resourcing, sponsor and delivery partner liaison, and navigating a matrixed organisation in order to ensure excellent outcomes for members. Combining an ambitious, collaborative, consultative, commercial, creative and risk-aware approach, the role-holder will need to drive and influence many interconnected internal and external relationships necessary to add value to tens of thousands of sector professionals and our member organisations, across all areas of UK Finance’s expertise.

The Commercial Director will lead their team to create a consistently excellent standard for the ‘member experience’ across an extensive and continually evolving programme of training, qualifications, conferences, networking events, products and services.

• To inspire, develop and lead an established team of 18 with a view to maintaining and evolving a sustainable and scalable business model to create member value and commercial return for UK Finance.
• To embed the commercial strategy, development, delivery of creative and content programmes across the learning, events and commercial partnership portfolio.
• Leveraging the skills, scale, capacity and capability of external providers and trusted partners where appropriate to enable the delivery of our ambitious portfolio.
• To set, proactively monitor and review budgeting, pricing and resourcing across the portfolio, and to operate effectively and efficiently within the UK Finance controls framework.
• To curate strong relationships at all levels internally, and with key stakeholders in member, associate member and stakeholder firms.
• Deliver vision and values of UK Finance through all work.
• Preparing, and delivering against, business plans and stretching budgets.
• Working proactively with members and colleagues across the business to ensure that UK Finance is leading on the generation and scheduling of topics and events with a holistic view of the whole portfolio and changing member needs.
• Proactively exploring opportunities to develop relationships with new partners in order to bring valuable products and services to our members.
• To determine and negotiate at senior decision-maker level a consistent ‘fit’ of the right sponsors or partner with the right experts and the right products.
• Monitoring and taking remedial action where necessary on sponsorship income, delegate numbers, commercial partnership income and related performance, and performance against targets.
• To monitor and measure feedback from colleagues, delegates, sponsors, member firms and from other sources (i.e. annual member survey, committees, user groups) and use this to drive continuous improvement across the portfolio.
• Ensuring the team is running all events and training to the highest possible quality in terms of set-up, process management, catering, speaker, administration, procurement, invoicing, marketing and communications.
• To lead on the development of commercial proposals and the overall value proposition for training, events, sponsorship, new partnership models and leveraging new and existing UK Finance service offerings.
• Working closely with marketing and communications functions, to ensure provision of high quality and consistent marketing, design in all materials and presentations.
• To be responsible for UK Finance and sponsor brand values being upheld in all virtual and in-person events and training, as well as all promotional materials.
• Collaborative engagement with the membership function, to build commercial relationships at senior levels with Members and Associate Members and create tailored sponsorship proposals with them.
• To maintain and enhance relationships across Exco, Board and senior stakeholders which can help drive better engagement for the team.
• To be accountable for procurement and relationship management with outsourced services, venues, other third-party suppliers and trusted commercial partners to ensure the best value is achieved for UK Finance from any related expenditure.
• To ensure clear and recorded working procedures for administration, cross-business collaboration and financial management.

• Must have: Experience in a senior leadership position in events and/or training and business development.
• Demonstrable experience of leading, inspiring and developing high performing teams.
• Demonstrable experience of collaborating in knowledge-focused / policy-led organisations.
• Demonstrable experience of managing substantial cost and revenue budgets within a proportionate controls’ environment.
• Demonstrable experience of influencing and negotiating at senior levels.
• Demonstrable experience of overseeing multiple projects simultaneously, and delivering to time, budget and expectations.
• A strong track record of product innovation and maximising commercial opportunities.
• Experience of working successfully in complex matrix environments.
• Experience of balancing commercial imperatives with other, at times conflicting, business requirements (i.e. integrity, brand, purpose).
• Experience of producing training and/or events and business development in a highly regulated sector.
• Experience of strategy development, and practical implementation.

• Highly commercial and driven to maximise both member value and financial return.
• Gravitas and ability to command the confidence and trust of senior individuals in members, associate members, partner firms, regulators and government who may be speakers, sponsors or commercial partners.
• Exceptional team management and leadership skills.
• Naturally collaborative, consultative and consensus building.
• Strong programme and project management skills.
• Excellent communication skills - oral, written and listening.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and able to quickly build relationships.
• Excellent stakeholder (both internal and external) and matrix management skills.
• The ability to take a brief and positively communicate it to others.
• Capable of, and willing to, directly produce some events in whole or part as necessary.
• Computer literacy including Microsoft Office 365, CRM & virtual events / meeting platforms.
• Strategic thinker, with the ability to translate into practical delivery.
• Imagination and creativity (original thinking).
• Self-motivated with dynamism and strong work ethic.
• Resilience and persistence.

• A degree or other equivalent, relevant qualification.