Senior Project Manager, Events

Department: Event Operations

Location: London - Hybrid working

Position type: Fixed Term Contract until September 2025

What the hiring manager says

“We have an exciting opportunity for a Senior Project Manager to join the fast-paced Events team. At the GSMA we continually strive to provide an engaging experience for our attendees by innovative thinking and working with leading industry experts. The successful candidate has experience in event project management and onsite operations and should be service oriented, detailed and motivated to work with our high-profile clients. The candidate should be a strong team player with a “can do” attitude but will also need to be able to work well independently."

Gareth Hamer, Head of Event Operations, GSMA Ltd.

About the Team

The GSMA Operations department is responsible for the operational delivery of all event and exhibition components of the four MWC events plus the M360 event series. Our events range from 700 attendees at our M360 event in Baku to the 100,000 attendees at our flagship MWC event in Barcelona.  

We work – and partner - with leading industry vendors around the globe to deliver innovative and creative solutions that make a real difference to our attendees. We provide platforms that enable our members (telecom operators) and other players in the mobile ecosystem to meet face to face and conduct business.  

With a team spread across our global offices, the Events team has responsibility to manage and deliver the conference, convening and networking related components of GSMA’s events, as well as many other projects. We are a close-knit team who thrive on the challenges we face to continue to innovate and deliver best in class products and services. Anyone who has ever attended our flagship event in Barcelona will know what we mean by quality!

About the Role

As our events develop, innovate and gather even more momentum within the industry, you will play a key role in enabling us to hit our ambitious targets. You will be responsible for achieving event KPIs that will be given by the Event Directors. You will be responsible for owning and leading operational and logistical delivery elements across the event and related projects, working closely with internal and external stakeholders, ensuring your projects always achieve the highest standards, as well as opportunities for cost and process efficiencies. You will take the lead in the delivery of some of our events and deliver a project within an event at some others.

The role will entail the pre-planning and onsite execution of our events and related projects. The candidate will need to establish processes for working with internal and external stakeholders, create project timelines and ensure deadlines are adhered to, manage budgets of varying scales and present project updates to senior management as necessary.  

The candidate will need to engage with various departments and suppliers to manage logistical aspects of the events such as planning, venue sourcing, forecasts, build, safety, security, catering, staffing, marketing, AV and production. Maintaining risk assessments and ensuring compliance with the relevant health & safety procedures are other essential elements of this role. 

We are focused on working collaboratively and sharing knowledge, the Senior Project Manager is expected to organise information in a structured way and have an open and positive approach.  

This is a very exciting role for the right candidate who has vision and experience and can translate that into cost effective event delivery, without impacting quality or customer experience.   

About You

You will have substantial experience having worked as a Senior Project Manager level in an operations role within a commercial environment for a number of years, be able to work independently with minimum supervision, demonstrate strong project management skills with the ability to plan ahead to work on a number of activities simultaneously. You will be able lead a project from start to finish, monitoring timescales and deadlines, identify support needs, consistently prioritising your time and the time of others as required, minimising distractions so that you can focus on high-impact tasks. Certifications in project management and occupational safety are a benefit.

You will have solid operational skills, having performed operational roles on events throughout your career to date, including solid financial negotiation skills, having previous sole responsibility of budgets for >£500k and be able to confidently manage suppliers to ensure successful delivery and a positive working relationship. Liaise with finance and legal, drafting contract scheduled and monitoring current contracts/budgets together with SLA compliance. There is an opportunity to work closely on the RFP process for subsequent years.

You will be highly self-motivated and able to work with minimum supervision. You will be able to lead, take ownership of and be fully accountable for the projects that you are assigned.

You will be able to manage and be responsible for the workload of others, freelance or permanent members of the team, as required.

We work in a fast-paced environment, it is important that you are able to demonstrate your ability to work under pressure and at times to tight deadlines, demonstrating effective time management and prioritisation skills, but also having flexibility to take on and assist team members in others projects when required. You will need to be considered in your communication, tailoring the style to your audience, being flexible in your approach by adapting to the different ways in which teams work and show an awareness of cultural differences. Attention to detail and strong grammar (in written communications) is very important.

You will have strong interpersonal skills, have proven experience within a positive a supportive team culture, be client-facing, professional, service-oriented, confident, and personable.  Communication skills in other languages would be benefitial.  Proficiency in Microsoft Office is essential.

Contract type

Worker type

What We Offer

Working at the GSMA offers you unparalleled access to the mobile industry. We offer a chance to truly shape the direction of mobile, whatever your role. By joining the GSMA, you will be exposed to a fast-paced rapidly evolving environment, working on global solutions, genuinely fascinating and industry-changing projects and a stimulating and dynamic environment designed to enable you to flourish.

In addition to architect-designed offices and competitive compensation, our benefits include fantastic learning & development opportunities, generous holiday allowances, four additional days off for professional development and many others.

To learn more about the GSMA, visit our career site, our LinkedIn page and our Twitter page.

Being You at the GSMA

We care deeply about diversity, equity and inclusivity and aspire to be the best at it. Your well-being and work/life balance is important, so flexi-time and remote working is available to all staff. We're keen to ensure everyone is equal, represented and connected so we particularly encourage applications from all demographics. The sucess of the GSMA year on year will continue to be contributed by people from all walks of life.

GSMA Values

Our values not only drive our culture – they shape how we work and interact inside and outside our global organisation.

Passionately driven

We approach everything we do with unparalleled capability, tenacity and commitment, knowing that the challenging scale, pace and complexity of our work is what leads to its world-changing impact.

Insightful leaders

We continually develop and engage our expertise, insight and creativity so that we’re always ready to respond to the changing landscape with authority, agility and nuance.

Stronger together

We lean on each other so the industry can lean on us, embracing our diversity by actively seeking out perspectives and skill sets beyond our own, fuelling each other’s successes and constantly asking how we can help.

Underpinning our values is our collective mindset to show up purposefully as good human beings every day, in every situation. When we’re at our best – we are collaborative, considerate and compassionate to others, and we create a safe space for one another to thrive, assuming positive intent in our colleagues. And if we aren’t at our best and the pressure is on – we feel free to be ourselves but still remain curious, lean into the tough stuff and we are always respectful to others and accountable for the part we play.