Job Description

In a world of possibilities, pursue one with endless opportunities. Imagine Next!At Parsons, you can imagine a career where you thrive, work with exceptional people, and be yourself. Guided by our leadership vision of valuing people, embracing agility, and fostering growth, we cultivate an innovative culture that empowers you to achieve your full potential. Unleash your talent and redefine what’s possible.

**Join a Landmark Giga-Project Shaping the Future of Saudi Arabia**

Our client is delivering one of the Kingdom’s most ambitious and high-profile giga-projects, set to redefine global standards in destination development, innovation, and visitor experience. As part of the integrated Delivery Partner team, you will play a key role in planning, designing, and implementing world-class assets and infrastructure that support the Kingdom’s Vision 2030.

This is a unique opportunity to contribute to a pioneering program at scale, working alongside industry-leading experts, cutting-edge technologies, and diverse stakeholders. If you are driven by challenge, motivated by impact, and eager to be part of a legacy project that will influence generations to come, we invite you to consider joining this transformative journey.

Lead the end-to-end planning, governance, readiness and integrated delivery of major events across the client’s city operations, ensuring City Operations and O&M functions are fully aligned, prepared and effectively integrated into event delivery.

Role Purpose

The Senior Director, Event Planning is accountable for establishing and leading the integrated planning capability for the client’s major sporting, entertainment, cultural and civic events. The role translates the strategic event portfolio into executable plans, ensuring that scope, governance, budgets, schedules, operational requirements, stakeholder commitments and readiness activities are defined, assured and aligned across City Operations, O&M functions, districts, venues and delivery partners.

Acting as the City Operations planning lead and integrator for major events, the Senior Director coordinates citywide operational overlays and dependencies while maintaining clear boundaries with event owners, venue and asset operators, who remain accountable for delivery within their controlled areas and contracted scopes.

With approximately 25 years of experience, this role provides senior leadership, strategic judgement and operational integration expertise for large-scale and high-profile events.

Key Responsibilities

1. Event Strategy, Portfolio and Governance

• Develop and maintain the client’s major-events planning framework, lifecycle, governance model, standards, templates and assurance requirements.
• Translate strategic objectives and the event calendar into an integrated multi-year portfolio plan, identifying cumulative demand, shared resources, operational conflicts and critical decisions.
• Establish clear accountabilities, decision rights, stage gates, escalation routes and interfaces across event owners, City Operations, O&M functions, districts, venues and corporate functions.
• Provide executive advice, options, risk assessments, recommendations and decision papers on event scope, feasibility, priorities and readiness.

2. Integrated Event Planning

• Lead development and assurance of integrated event plans from concept and feasibility through detailed planning, readiness, live delivery, decommissioning and post-event review.
• Define event objectives, scope, operating assumptions, attendance profiles, service levels, milestones, dependencies, deliverables and acceptance criteria.
• Integrate functional plans covering mobility, security, crowd management, guest experience, accessibility, logistics, waste, cleaning, public realm, wayfinding, workforce, volunteers, technology, communications and emergency response.
• Maintain the integrated master schedule, action tracker, dependency map, decision log and evidence repository for each major event.
• Coordinate planning for concurrent events and destination operations to protect business continuity, asset integrity and guest experience.

3. Operational Concept and Overlay Planning

• Lead the development of event operational concepts, venue and citywide operating models, service overlays and temporary infrastructure requirements.
• Ensure plans address all event phases including build, testing, event operations, breakdown and reinstatement.
• Coordinate interfaces between citywide services, O&M functions and internal venue operations, ensuring hand-offs, boundaries and service responsibilities are documented and agreed.
• Challenge requirements to optimise temporary assets, land use, shared services, resource utilisation and total cost of delivery.

4. Readiness, Assurance and Risk

• Establish and manage a risk-based operational readiness and assurance programme with defined evidence, reviews, approvals and go/no-go criteria.
• Lead tabletop exercises, simulations, test events, venue readiness reviews and integrated rehearsals involving City Operations, O&M teams, venues and external agencies.
• Maintain event-level risks, issues, assumptions, dependencies, contingency plans and business continuity arrangements.
• Provide transparent readiness reporting and escalate material gaps with practical recovery actions, accountable owners and clear timelines.

5. Live Event Integration and Post-Event Review

• Ensure approved plans transition effectively into live event command, control, communications and reporting arrangements.
• Provide senior planning and integration support during event operations, coordinating issue resolution and changes to the approved operating plan in collaboration with event owners and command structures.
• Lead structured post-event reviews, performance assessments, lessons learned and improvement plans.
• Embed recurring lessons into standards, templates, procurement scopes, O&M procedures and future event plans.

6. Stakeholder and Partner Management

• Lead cross-functional planning forums and build effective relationships with event owners, venues, districts, government entities, emergency services, operators, sponsors, promoters and service partners.
• Coordinate submissions, approvals, permits, commitments and dependencies with relevant internal and external stakeholders.
• Create concise executive dashboards and briefings that give leaders a clear view of decisions, readiness, risks, cost and schedule.
• Represent City Operations in event governance committees and multi-agency planning forums.

7. Commercial, Procurement and Budget Management

• Develop cost plans, resource forecasts, procurement strategies and scopes for specialist event advisory, planning and delivery services.
• Structure flexible multi-supplier frameworks that allow specialist providers to support one or more functional lots and service types.
• Lead technical evaluations, mobilisation planning, contract performance management, change control and value-for-money reviews.
• Ensure suppliers are appropriately qualified, locally compliant and capable of mobilising local resources and workforce development plans.
• Own assigned planning budgets, forecasts and cost reporting, with clear distinction between capital, operating and event-specific expenditure.

8. Team Leadership and Capability Development

• Build, lead and develop a high-performing event planning team supported by specialist consultants, temporary staff and delivery partners.
• Define the required permanent, temporary, volunteer and contractor resource model for the event portfolio, aligned with O&M and City Operations capabilities.
• Establish planning tools, knowledge management, training, mentoring and succession arrangements.
• Promote a culture of accountability, collaboration, safety, guest focus, continuous improvement and development of local talent.

Candidate Profile

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Event Management, Business Administration, Operations Management, Project Management, Hospitality, Tourism or a related discipline.
• Master’s degree in a relevant discipline is preferred.
• Professional certification in project, programme, event, risk or operational management is desirable.

Experience

• Approximately 25 years of progressive experience in major-event planning, event operations, programme management, destination operations or a closely related field.
• At least 10–12 years in senior leadership roles with direct accountability for planning and operational integration of complex sporting, entertainment, cultural or civic events.
• Demonstrable accountability for integrated planning, O&M coordination and citywide operational overlays for large-scale, high-profile events.
• Proven experience coordinating multiple functions, venues, government stakeholders and delivery partners in complex, multi-stakeholder environments.
• Strong experience in integrated scheduling, operational readiness, risk, governance, procurement, budget control and executive reporting.
• Experience in Saudi Arabia, the GCC, destination developments or giga-project environments is strongly preferred.

Preferred Background

• Leadership experience supporting Formula One, international football, Olympic or Asian Games, major tennis tournaments, festivals, concerts, exhibitions or comparable high-attendance events.
• Experience within an organising committee, major destination, venue cluster, promoter, event consultancy, public authority or integrated resort.
• Practical exposure to citywide event overlays, temporary infrastructure, command and control, workforce and volunteer planning, accessibility, sustainability and guest experience.

Technical & Functional Expectations

• Integrated event planning, portfolio management, scheduling, governance and stage-gate assurance.
• Operational concept development, functional integration, overlay planning and service-level definition across City Operations and O&M.
• Readiness, exercising, risk management, contingency planning, command and control support and post-event assurance.
• Budget development, procurement strategy, tender evaluation, contract management and change control.
• Executive reporting, stakeholder negotiation, workshop facilitation and multi-agency coordination.
• Competence with planning, collaboration, dashboard and document-management tools relevant to event and city operations planning.

Key Competencies

Leadership Competencies

• Strategic leadership and executive presence
• Decisive leadership under pressure
• Team and capability development
• Influence across complex stakeholders
• Commercial judgement and accountability

Functional Competencies

• Integrated event planning
• Programme governance and scheduling
• Operational readiness and assurance
• Risk, resilience and contingency planning
• Commercial and supplier management
• Executive reporting and decision support

Behavioural Competencies

• Guest and customer focus
• Collaboration and partnership
• Clear, concise communication
• Structured problem solving
• Resilience and adaptability
• Integrity, ownership and continuous improvement

Role Scope Boundary

City Operations accountability:
Citywide event planning standards, integrated operational overlays, cross-functional coordination, readiness assurance, multi-agency governance and citywide operational integration, including alignment with O&M services and infrastructure.

Event owner, venue and asset operator accountability:
Event content, commercial ownership and detailed delivery within controlled venues or contracted scopes, aligned to approved An error occurred while loading the chat response. If you continue to receive errors, please report a bug.

Parsons equally employs representation at all job levels no matter the race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age, disability or genetic information.

We truly invest and care about our employee’s wellbeing and provide endless growth opportunities as the sky is the limit, so aim for the stars! Imagine next and join the Parsons quest—APPLY TODAY!

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