VP Sales, Gaming

Informa Festivals marks an exciting new chapter in B2B events, bringing some of the world's most influential creative, technology and business festivals together. We’re combining prestigious events like Cannes Lions, Black Hat, Money20/20, GDC, and London Tech Week with cutting-edge marketing intelligence platforms and advisory services to deliver unmissable experiences and insights.

Our festival-led approach reimagines traditional B2B events, creating powerful, immersive experiences that drive innovation and industry advancement. Building on decades of expertise and powered by Informa's international reach, we're shaping the next generation of business festivals.

About GDC Festival of Gaming: GDC brings together 20,000 attendees from around the world for five days of networking, discovery and inspiration. Featuring 750+ lectures, panels, tutorials, and roundtables, GDC covers a wide range of game development topics, offering unparalleled opportunities for learning and collaboration among industry leaders.

Informa is seeking a dynamic VP Sales to join our Gaming Vertical leadership team. This individual will drive the strategy, development, and execution of our go-to-market sales initiatives, leading a global team focused on selling live and virtual events, marketing services, and digital products. As part of the GDC team, you’ll play a key role in shaping the future of the games industry by connecting with clients and partners, ensuring a world-class experience for our audience.

As a VP Sales, you will be accountable for leading a high-performing global sales team, developing and executing sales strategies, and managing relationships with key clients and prospects. You will oversee the sales of live and virtual events, marketing services, and digital products, ensuring your team is aligned with Informa’s objectives and delivering exceptional results.

Key Responsibilities & Accountabilities:

Leadership & Team Development:

• Lead and inspire a global team of sales professionals, ensuring high performance, development, and accountability.
• Manage workforce planning, onboarding, coaching, and performance management to create a top-tier sales organization.
• Foster a culture of continuous learning and personal development for yourself and your team.

Strategic Sales & Client Relationship Management:

• Develop and execute an integrated go-to-market sales strategy, aligning with overall business objectives.
• Clearly articulate the value proposition of our product offerings to key customers and stakeholders.
• Identify and anticipate market trends, adapting sales strategies to drive commercial growth.
• Drive client retention and upsell opportunities by understanding client needs and delivering value.
• Establish and grow relationships with new prospects, uncovering new business opportunities.
• Elevate Informa’s position with clients, handling escalations and managing conflict as needed.

Sales Performance & Best Practices:

• Create and implement best practices for sales processes, ensuring efficiency and effectiveness across the team.
• Utilize Sales Excellence tools to track performance, optimize the sales pipeline, and drive success from prospecting to closing deals.
• Provide regular sales reporting and performance metrics, highlighting risks, opportunities, and trends.
• Collaborate with internal teams to analyze data, refine sales strategies, and improve team performance.

Product Innovation & Collaboration:

• Partner with production and product teams to identify new market opportunities and co-develop innovative solutions.
• Ensure alignment between market needs, client demands, and Informa’s offerings.
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders to improve sales tools, processes, and systems, ensuring the team is using best practices.

Maximizing Revenue & Operational Excellence:

• Drive the sales team’s performance to meet and exceed revenue targets while ensuring cost-effective sales models.
• Leverage Informa’s Salesforce system to manage the sales pipeline, track performance, and optimize sales efforts.

• Proven sales leadership experience managing a global sales team, ideally within the events or media industries.
• Deep understanding of selling live and virtual events, conference sponsorships, and marketing services.
• Strong strategic thinking, with the ability to analyze market trends and adjust sales strategies for growth.
• Excellent relationship management skills with both internal and external stakeholders.
• Experience in driving revenue growth through upselling, new business acquisition, and client retention.
• Strong analytical and data-driven decision-making capabilities.
• Familiarity with Salesforce or similar CRM platforms.

We believe that great things happen when people connect face-to-face. That's why we work in-person with each other, or with customers and partners, three days a week or more. When you’re not spending time together in one of our offices or other workplaces – like at an Informa event – you get the flexibility and support to work from home or remotely.

We work hard to make sure Life at Informa is rewarding, supportive and enjoyable for everyone. Here’s some of what you can expect when you join us. But don’t just take our word for it – see what our colleagues have to say at LifeAt.Informa.com

Our benefits include:

• Great community: a welcoming culture with in-person and online social events, our fantastic Walk the World charity day and active colleague groups and networks promoting a positive, supportive, and collaborative work environment
• Broader impact: take up to four days per year to volunteer, with charity match funding available too
• Career opportunity: the opportunity to develop your career with bespoke training and learning, mentoring platforms and on-demand access to thousands of courses on LinkedIn Learning. When it’s time for the next step, we encourage and support internal job moves
• Time out: 15 days PTO rising to 20 after three years and 25 after six years, plus 10 national holidays, a birthday leave day and the chance to work from (almost!) anywhere for up to four weeks a year
• Competitive benefits, including a 401k match, health, vision and dental insurance, parental leave and an ESPP offering company shares at a minimum 15% discount
• Strong wellbeing support through EAP assistance, mental health first aiders, free access to a wellness app and more
• Recognition for great work, with global awards and kudos programs
• As an international company, the chance to collaborate with teams around the world

The salary range for this role is $150,000-175,000 based on experience. 

We’re not solely focused on a checklist of skills. We champion energy and ambition and look for colleagues who will roll their sleeves up, join in and help make things happen. If it sounds like a match and you have most – although not all – of the skills and experience listed, we welcome your application.

If you would like to request reasonable adjustments or accommodations to assist your participation in the hiring process and, or in the advertised position, please inform the appropriate Talent Acquisition Partner for the role once they have been in touch. Your request will be reviewed and considered in confidence. At Informa, you'll find inclusive experiences and environments where all perspectives and backgrounds are welcomed. As part of this approach and our diversity and inclusion commitments, we are also formally an Equal Opportunities Employer. This means we base decisions on relevant qualifications and merit and do not discriminate on the basis of key characteristics and statuses, including all of those protected by law. Ask us or see our website for full information.

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