Senior Conference Services Manager - Langham Job Chicago area,Illinois USA,Hospitality / Hotel / Catering

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE OF POSITION

The Senior Conference Services Manager is responsible for the establishment of, adherence to and execution of key processes to ensure group logistics are planned accordingly and properly communicated to operational departments. This individual works closely with the DOSM, Director of Catering and Conference Services Manager to ensure events are executed at a luxury experience level—developing VIP sets, working with A/V company to fully understand technology offerings while liaising with clients to deliver personalized experiences for meeting/event attendees.

This individual works closely with the Director of Group Sales to ensure that group food and beverage contribution is in alignment with budgeted expectations.

RESPONSIBILITIES AND JOB DUTIES Primary

Planning and organization

Contributes to the overall strategy and planning of conference services by maximizing resources (diagrams, menus, a/v, etc.) to enhance upsell efforts.
Partners with the conference services manager to develops a comprehensive upsell program (food and beverage, meeting room rental, amenities, etc.) to ensure budgeted banquet and catering sales revenues are achieved.
Works with the Executive Chef / Director of F&B, Director of Catering and Director of Banquets to develop a plan to launch a minimum of two new initiatives (substantial in scope—F&B offerings, service enhancements, etc.) each year.
Proactively addresses challenges and opportunities to ensure flawless event execution.
Identifies, locates and secures the people/assets (i.e. marketing) to achieve the event logistics required.

Account Management

Works with the conference services manager to develop and execute an annual rebooking sales plan to facilitate group rebookings.
Partners with the Director of Catering and conference services manager to forecast revenue projections, market segmentation analysis, guest cover projections and meal period pricing to ensure total banquet budget is achieved.
Partners with group sales associates to develop customized group experiences in alignment with organizational objectives.
Oversee processes associated with pre-convention meetings, post-convention meetings, increased capture of meeting event surveys, etc.

Market Intelligence (works with DOSM, Director of Catering and Conference Services Manager to fully understand competitive set).

Financial performance
SWOT analysis
Menu analysis completed on a regular basis with catering lead
Meeting/event trends
Market conditions that may impact purchasing patterns/industry trends

Customer Relationships

Establishes, enhances and maintains productive quality working relationships with key internal and external customers.
Keeps Hotel information relating to customer requirements, interests and market activities up to date.
Develop relationships with customer base to determine new opportunities for account penetration and share information with appropriate disciplines (i.e. catering sales, group sales, transient sales).
Contributes ideas to improve the products and services offered.
Responsible for the creation of marketable and cutting-edge offerings (i.e. themed breaks, unique events, etc.).

Team Leadership

Directs, monitors and evaluates the upsell results of c.s. team to ensure sales revenue targets are met.
Shares departmental and individual objectives with team—reviewing and updating considering changes in the business, implementing corrective action if necessary.
Communicates regularly and on-time verbally and non-verbally, providing individual team members with prompt and specific feedback on performance.
Creates an atmosphere that motivates and encourages people to perform to the best of their ability, minimizing conflict when/if it occurs.
Collaborates with key…