The Manager, Future Planning is responsible for preparing our Conferences business for future growth through accurate reporting and strategic planning of program and exhibitor inventory. This includes ensuring program, audience, and exhibitor requirements can be accommodated within future venues, supporting capacity analysis, contributing to program budget development, and determining exhibitor inventory strategies.
The successful candidate will support the end-to-end processes for program and exhibitor inventory management, aligning with key stakeholders to effectively manage and track changes. This individual will lead the evolution of planning tools and reporting capabilities, ensuring they scale alongside our growing conference portfolio.
Primary Responsibilities:
Exhibitor Inventory Management & Growth
- Support Exhibitor Operations and Global Exhibitor Sales inventory management, year-over-year growth initiatives, and product development.
- Develop a deep understanding of exhibitor products and their impact on conference performance.
- Create tools, processes, and reporting frameworks that support best practices and enable data-driven decisions that maximize conference contribution and business outcomes.
Planning, Reporting & Process Improvement
- Build, manage, and continuously enhance planning documents and reporting roll-ups that are critical to managing program and exhibitor inventory processes.
- Develop automations and process efficiencies across planning documents used by cross-functional teams.
- Proactively identify opportunities to streamline workflows through automation, creating project plans that drive reporting enhancements and stronger data connectivity.
- Utilize advanced Excel and VBA capabilities to automate manual processes, improving efficiency, reducing errors, and delivering measurable time savings.
- Partner with stakeholders to identify analytics and reporting requirements, recommending and implementing the most effective solutions.
- Support program budget development by ensuring the accuracy, integrity, and alignment of budget and skeleton agenda data.
Professional Experience Requirements / Qualifications:
Technical Skills
- Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel, including VBA, with the ability to develop, maintain, and interpret complex reports that track historical, current, and future conference data.
- Experience creating dashboards and visualizations that support business decision-making.
- Experience with SharePoint and Jira is preferred but not required.
- Demonstrated ability to identify automation opportunities and leverage technology to improve processes and reporting.
- Ability to quickly learn and apply new software and technologies to enhance tools, reporting, and operational effectiveness.
Problem Solving & Analytical Skills
- Exceptional problem-solving capabilities with a proven track record of addressing complex business challenges.
- Ability to think creatively, interpret data, identify trends, and translate insights into actionable recommendations.
- Highly detail-oriented with strong analytical skills and the ability to synthesize complex information into meaningful conclusions.
- Comfortable operating in a fast-paced environment with a strong sense of urgency and execution focus.
- Demonstrated ability to independently own challenges and drive them from problem identification through implementation, including within a matrixed organization.
Communication Skills
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to present complex concepts, technical information, and data insights in a clear and structured manner.
- Proven ability to collaborate with teams whose technical expertise has been developed through practical experience and translate requirements, recommendations, and results into a digestible format.
Core Values
- Demonstrates integrity, collaboration, objectivity, and a growth-oriented, no-limits mindset.
- Consistently delivers results while applying global best practices.
Personality & Working Style
- Naturally curious and open-minded, with a proactive approach to understanding business context and the broader conference landscape.
- Customer-centric, with a commitment to supporting seamless onsite experiences for attendees, exhibitors, and stakeholders.
- Willingness to travel and support onsite conference delivery as required.
Preferred Experience
- Knowledge of conference and event planning, including program agendas, venue space utilization, exhibitor requirements, and operational challenges, is a plus.
- 4+ yrs of progressive business experience
Who are we?
At Gartner, Inc. (NYSE:IT), we guide the leaders who shape the world.
Our mission relies on expert analysis and bold ideas to deliver actionable, objective business and technology insights, helping enterprise leaders and their teams succeed with their mission-critical priorities.
Since our founding in 1979, we’ve grown to 20,000 associates globally who support over 13,000 client enterprises in ~90 countries and territories. We do important, interesting and substantive work that matters. That’s why we hire associates with the intellectual curiosity, energy and drive to want to make a difference. The bar is unapologetically high. So is the impact you can have here.
What makes Gartner a great place to work?
Our vast, virtually untapped market potential offers limitless opportunities – opportunities that may not even exist right now – for you to grow professionally and flourish personally. How far you go is driven by your passion and performance.
We hire remarkable people who collaborate and win as a team. Together, our singular, unifying goal is to deliver results for our clients.
Our teams are inclusive and composed of individuals from different geographies, cultures, religions, ethnicities, races, genders, sexual orientations, abilities and generations.
We invest in great leaders who bring out the best in you and the company, enabling us to multiply our impact and results. This is why, year after year, we are recognized worldwide as a great place to work.
Gartner is the world authority on AI
At Gartner, you’ll join a company at the very center of the AI revolution. Gartner has proactive, objective guidance throughout clients’ AI journeys. We set the standard for how organizations leverage artificial intelligence to drive meaningful impact. You’ll have access to unmatched resources, expertise, and technology, and play a key role in helping Gartner and our clients innovate and grow as we leverage AI to transform business and technology landscapes.
It’s an exciting time to be at Gartner, with limitless opportunities to make a real impact, grow your skills, and build a lasting, meaningful career in a field that’s reshaping the way we operate. If you’re passionate about AI and want to be part of a team that’s guiding the leaders who shape the world, Gartner is the place for you.
What do we offer?
Gartner offers world-class benefits, highly competitive compensation and disproportionate rewards for top performers.
In our hybrid work environment, we provide the flexibility and support for you to thrive — working virtually when it's productive to do so and getting together with colleagues in a vibrant community that is purposeful, engaging and inspiring.
Ready to grow your career with Gartner? Join us.
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Job Requisition ID:113517
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