Director OF Event Management

The Director, Event Strategy & Operations will lead the company-wide events function for QTS, including executive-level meetings, customer and partner events, internal leadership events, industry engagements, tradeshows, site activations, and other high-visibility brand moments. This role is responsible for shaping event strategy, bringing forward fresh ideas, and translating business priorities into events that are thoughtful, well-run, and aligned to QTS goals. This leader must be able to think strategically while also operating as a doer. They will own planning, logistics, run of show, vendor coordination, budget management, executive stakeholder communication, onsite execution, and post-event reporting. The role requires strong executive presence, high professionalism, sound judgment, discretion, and the ability to build trusted relationships across the company. What You Will Do Event Strategy and Creative Leadership Lead the event strategy for QTS-hosted and attended events, ensuring each event has a clear purpose, audience, business objective, and desired outcome. Bring forward creative, executive-ready event concepts that elevate QTS, support the brand, and create stronger engagement with customers, partners, employees, and communities. Serve as the events thought partner to Brand, Marketing, Communications, Sales, External Affairs, and senior leadership teams. Identify new approaches, industry trends, and experience opportunities that help QTS show up with more polish, consistency, and impact. Executive and C-Level Event Ownership Own planning and execution for high-profile, C-level, CEO, customer, partner, and board-facing events, including executive briefing needs, guest experience, run of show, and onsite readiness. Interact directly with executives and senior stakeholders with confidence, clarity, professionalism, and appropriate urgency. Anticipate executive needs, risks, sensitivities, and decision points before they become issues. Ensure events reflect the right tone, level of quality, and business importance for the audience. Operational Execution and Team Leadership Lead the centralized event planning team and establish clear swim lanes, priorities, timelines, and standards for execution. Administer all phases of the event process, including planning, logistics, registration, staffing, catering, transportation, audiovisual, signage, collateral, run of show, onsite execution, teardown, and post-event follow-up. Operate as a hands-on leader who can both direct the work and step in to execute when needed. Build strong team routines, including planning meetings, status updates, check-ins, decision logs, and issue escalation paths. Coach, develop, and hold team members accountable for quality, professionalism, responsiveness, and follow-through. Process, Reporting, and Measurement Build repeatable pre-event and post-event processes that create consistency across event types and reduce last-minute fire drills. Develop event intake, planning, reporting, and prioritization tools that help the organization understand workload, goals, outcomes, and resource needs. Create an event ROI and impact model appropriate to the event type, including attendance, engagement, stakeholder feedback, budget performance, and business outcomes where available. Use post-event learnings to improve future planning, vendor decisions, team resourcing, and executive reporting. Budget, Vendor, and Risk Management Manage event budgets, vendor relationships, contracts, negotiations, timelines, and invoice reconciliation in alignment with QTS policies and processes. Partner with procurement, legal, accounting, security, facilities, and other teams as needed to support compliant event execution. Identify risks and dependencies early, provide clear recommendations, and manage trade-offs without losing momentum. Ensure all events are delivered with strong attention to detail, cost discipline, and operational readiness. What You Will Need to be Successful Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience. 10+ years of experience leading large-scale corporate events, executive meetings, customer or partner events, conferences, tradeshows, site activations, or similar high-visibility events. 5+ years of people leadership experience directly supervising an event planning function or event team. Demonstrated experience owning executive-level or C-level events from strategy through onsite execution and post-event follow-up. Experience managing event budgets, vendor negotiations, contracts, timelines, logistics, and cross-functional stakeholders. Ability to travel and work outside standard business hours as needed, approximately 40% travel. Nice To Have 10+ years of management experience directly supervising an event planning function and team. Experience supporting events in a fast-paced, high-growth, B2B, technology, infrastructure, real estate, data center, or similar business environment. #J-18808-Ljbffr