Managing Director

Location:                     Yorkshire (Head Office)

Sector:                        Corporate Events – Leadership, Marketing & Logistics

Salary Package:            Circa £90k–£115k base bonus benefits potential LTIP

Reports to:                   Board of Shareholders / Group Board

The Opportunity A Defining Moment in Leadership

Our client is a well-established provider of corporate event management solutions, specialising in both individual organisations and sector-specific alliances.

This is a transformation mandate. We are seeking a bold, commercially intelligent, and strategically agile Managing Director to lead the businesses evolution. You will inherit a stable platform of trusted clients and operational strength and your mission will be to convert that foundation into a more scalable, diversified, and high-growth enterprise. If you thrive on moving a business from “operationally excellent” to “strategically unstoppable,” this is your role.

Accountabilities

• You will not be a caretaker. You will be a change-maker.
• Break the Vertical Dependency – The business has become over-reliant on a narrow sector. You will lead an aggressive, intelligent diversification into broader markets including corporate, tech, finance, and beyond, without abandoning the core vertical that provides stability.
• Install Commercial Rigour – Implement robust commercial strategies, tighter cost management, and modern operational efficiencies to break stagnant profit cycles and unlock sustainable margins.
• You will elevate yourself to strategic altitude, empowering a capable existing team to run operations while you focus on growth, diversification, and commercial performance.
• Strategy & Growth – Design and execute a 3–5 year transformation roadmap.
• Lead market diversification while preserving and protecting the core vertical base.
• Identify and secure long-term contracts with corporate clients, industry groups, and professional alliances.
• Commercial & Financial – Introduce rigorous pricing models, margin control, and cost-management frameworks.
• Oversee cash flow, profitability, and financial discipline across all revenue lines.
• Unlock cross-sector collaboration opportunities (joint events, shared audiences, bundled services) that have never been explored before.
• Leadership & Culture – Lead, inspire, and develop a team across Business Development, Event Management, Coordination, and Administration staff.
• Shift the culture from “business as usual” to innovation, accountability, and high performance.
• Empower operational leads (Event Manager, Office Manager) to own day-to-day delivery, freeing your time for strategic and commercial activity.
• Modernise processes to improve efficiency across virtual, hybrid, and in-person event delivery.
• Maintain and elevate excellence in event and conference execution while expanding overall capability.

Essential Experience & Competencies

• You are an experienced Managing Director, General Manager, or senior leader with a proven background in event management, agency, or professional services.
• Your track record must include successful diversification, you have taken a business from a single vertical into multiple adjacent or new markets and can prove it.
• You are commercially rigorous, capable of breaking stagnant profit cycles through strategic pricing, disciplined cost control, and value-based selling.
• You have experience (or high affinity for) operating within a portfolio or group structure, collaborating across multiple stakeholder businesses to unlock synergies.
• You are strategic by nature and emotionally intelligent in practice, comfortable stepping back from operations to empower others, while remaining fully accountable for outcomes.
• Your leadership style is bold, dynamic, and unafraid to challenge the status quo. You provoke healthy, necessary change without destabilising what works.

As a specialist boutique executive search firm, Executive Recruit partners with organisations to secure the calibre of leadership that drives meaningful change. Our bespoke methodology ensures clients access exceptional executives who combine strategic vision with proven execution, ultimately strengthening leadership depth and board performance.