Senior Director, Events, Global Communications And Engagement

The salary range for this position is $165,000-$175,000. 

Position Overview
The UN Foundation strives to advance human dignity and protect the planet through our work on transformative issues critical to humanity’s shared future. As a strategic partner to the United Nations, we bring together fresh thinking and diverse voices to mobilize the people, ideas, and resources needed to tackle urgent problems and drive progress towards the collective promise of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The Events Senior Director is the strategic and driving force behind the most compelling and engaging events and convenings that advance UN Foundation priorities, strengthen brand position as the UN’s closest strategic partner, and help demonstrate the UN’s unique value to the world. With a strong creative and marketing vision as well as first-rate skills in planning and execution, they will help the Foundation push the boundaries of high-impact events combining of the best of physical, virtual and hybrid event production. From high-profile, and multi-day convenings with large numbers of people and major public figures, to small white-glove private workshops and briefings, the Events Senior Director demonstrates the ambition, vision, drive, and practical skills needed to build on UN Foundation’s reputation for excellence and take the organization’s events and convenings to the next level, continually innovating on both in-person formats and virtual/hybrid technology to drive engagement.
This person will expand, train, and lead a team of skilled events staff, provide strategic, marketing, and tactical expertise to teams across the Foundation and manage contractors and suppliers/vendors as needed. They will lead a body of work to reposition the events team as a trusted and essential collaborator from initial concept to final execution through the entire organization, most especially for flagship moments (e.g., annual We the Peoples dinner and UN General Assembly Week).
The Events Senior Director is a member of the Global Communications and Engagement team, reporting to the Senior Director, Communications & Special Initiatives, and working closely with leaders and teams across the organization including the Foundation’s Board and C-suite and part of the Global Communications and Engagement team’s Cabinet.
This role also has an advisory element for international advance travel and overseas events supervision. This position is based in Washington, DC (hybrid schedule).
Essential Functions

• Provide strategic and creative leadership for all Foundation events, working with teams across the organization to envision, plan and execute innovative events that help strengthen UN Foundation brand, engagement, and partnerships.
• Reframe, build, leverage and message the talents and capacities of the events team throughout the organization.
• Hard launch the events team as a center for excellence, ensuring strategic counsel, information, event resources (including templates and best practice guidelines) are known by and accessible to teams across the UN Foundation.
• Create, develop, and own a busy Foundation events calendar, including collaborating to define optimal cadence, formats, and goals, ensuring greater Foundation wide planning, coordination, and prioritization.
• Manage budgets, workplans, external agencies and vendors, including juggling complex parallel events, assigning appropriate staff and resources, and executing personally as needed.
• Ensure comprehensive planning, on time delivery, and exceptional execution for in-person, hybrid, and virtual convenings, while managing contingencies, changes and evolving needs and expectations.
• Further build out, manage, and inspire a team of events staff, fostering a creative, entrepreneurial culture and driving constant learning and skills improvement.
• Provide strategic support to the Senior Manager of International Engagement and Advance on international trips and Congressional Delegations.
• Operate as a strategic and advisory partner with UN Foundation’s Advancement and Development team on creating and executing key fundraising moments for the Foundation.
• Oversight of the Event team’s project management software and the Foundation’s event registration platform.
• Grow a roster of external creative and technical agencies, vendors, and producers to maximize the Foundation’s creative agility and deliver varied events with different audiences and goals.
• Institutionalize and internally market strong processes, to build and foster best-practice across the organization, from sourcing vendors to agency engagement, to content/creative development, to post-event reporting, and data analytics.
• Create and implement marketing plans for events programs to deliver and engage audiences before, during, and after events.
• Maintain working knowledge of the UNF agreement process (for both contracts and grants), and when to utilize the proper templates accordingly. (As applicable to the role)
• Maintain a strong knowledge of UNF’s Salesforce database to be able to process and track agreements, extract information, and prepare reports. (As applicable to the role)
• Other duties as assigned.

Selection Criteria

• Bachelor’s degree required,  Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) preferred.
• 12-15+ years of related work experience, including 5-7 years of experience with UN/governmental protocol and events involving high-level public figures and celebrities, as well as large-scale convenings of on-the-ground practitioners, and activists.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Highly creative, with an eye for compelling engagement and design.
• Extremely well organized, obsessive attention to detail, and the highest standards of service-delivery and audience/participant engagement.
• Experience growing, leading, and managing a multi-site team.
• Considerable demonstrated experience and expertise in virtual, and hybrid events, and relevant technology and tools; existing relationships with vendors strongly preferred.
• Stellar professional attitude, with experience working with people at all levels, both externally and internally including the Foundation’s Board and C-suite.
• Excellent judgment, and creative problem-solving skills, including contract negotiation, dispute resolution, and contingency planning.
• Self-starter, and a team player who thrives in atmosphere focused on building an organization rather than individual success.
• Ability to stay calm and make quickly thought-out, appropriate decisions in a changing environment and anticipate future needs.
• Comfortable with flexible working hours and dependable to be available via phone or email during these times.

• Experience of MS Suite, Monday.com, SplashThat, CRM databases including Salesforce, and Every Action, event software including but not limited to Zoom, and virtual event platforms, including some technical fluency.

• Ability to travel and work domestically and internationally outside standard business hours (up to 25%) including evenings or weekends when necessary (when safe).
• Ability to lift 30lbs.
• A positive collegial approach.

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