Conference Director

Responsibilities

• Lead, manage, coach, and develop Civica’s conference team, including Conference Planners and Conference Coordinators.
• Establish clear expectations, priorities, and accountability for department staff and conduct regular 1:1s, performance reviews, coaching, and professional development.
• Manage department workload and capacity across multiple clients and overlapping conference cycles, proactively identifying staffing needs, resource conflicts, and risks.
• Assign and adjust conference responsibilities based on client needs, team capacity, experience, and development opportunities.
• Build a collaborative, accountable department culture aligned with Civica’s values and team-based approach.
• Participate actively with Civica leadership in company planning, staffing, client strategy, and operational decision-making.
• Serve as the lead conference planner for an assigned portfolio of association conferences, meetings, trade shows, and special events.
• Lead conferences from initial strategy and project planning through onsite execution, reconciliation, debrief, and transition to the next event cycle.
• Build trusted relationships with association executives, boards, committees, and volunteer leaders and serve as a strategic advisor on conference-related decisions.
• Help clients strengthen conference performance, attendee experience, revenue generation, expense management, and long-term event sustainability.
• Step in as a senior resource on complex client, venue, vendor, contractual, financial, or onsite issues across the department.
• Develop and manage budgets for assigned conferences and provide oversight and guidance on conference budgets across the department.
• Ensure conference decisions balance client goals, attendee experience, contractual obligations, risk, and financial stewardship.
• Lead or support venue sourcing, RFPs, site selection, contract negotiations, and major vendor relationships.
• Maintain strong relationships with hotels, convention centers, audiovisual/production companies, and other key industry partners.
• Review conference performance and financial results and identify opportunities to improve profitability, efficiency, and client value.
• Establish and maintain consistent conference planning standards, processes, templates, timelines, tools, and quality-control practices.
• Ensure conference teams maintain strong project plans, budgets, documentation, communication, and client visibility.
• Lead post-conference reviews and ensure lessons learned translate into improvements for future events and department practices.
• Identify opportunities to improve technology, workflows, staffing models, vendor partnerships, and the overall delivery of Civica’s conference services.
• Collaborate across Civica’s association management, finance, membership, marketing, education, and administrative teams to ensure conferences are integrated with broader client priorities.
• Support new-business proposals, conference assessments, budgeting, presentations, and client transitions as needed.
• Contribute conference expertise to Civica’s growth strategy and help evaluate new client opportunities and staffing requirements.
• Represent Civica professionally with clients, prospects, vendors, industry partners, and association and meetings-industry organizations.

Requirements

• 10+ years of progressive conference, convention, trade show, or meeting management experience, including significant experience independently leading complex events.
• Demonstrated experience managing, coaching, and developing staff.
• Strong knowledge of hotel and venue operations, sourcing, contracting, food and beverage, audiovisual/production, room blocks, registration, exhibits, sponsorship fulfillment, and onsite logistics.
• Demonstrated experience developing and managing conference budgets and understanding the revenue and expense drivers of association conferences.
• Strong project-management skills and the ability to oversee multiple clients, conferences, staff priorities, and deadlines simultaneously.
• Excellent client leadership, communication, facilitation, negotiation, and problem-solving skills.
• Strong judgment and the ability to remain calm, decisive, and solutions-oriented in high-pressure situations.
• Comfort with event technology, association databases, project-management platforms, Microsoft 365, and related systems.
• Ability and willingness to travel regularly and work extended onsite hours, including early mornings, evenings, and weekends.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent relevant experience.

Nice to have

• Association, nonprofit, or association management company (AMC) experience strongly preferred.
• CMP, CAE, or other relevant professional credential preferred.