VP, Customer Experience - Government & Public Sector

Position Overview

The Vice President of Customer Experience

• Government & Public Sector is responsible for the development of customer relationships, commercial development that can be directly tied to revenue, productivity, and effectiveness of client relationships, programs, and initiatives from the Hargrove brand, as well as introducing, where relevant, the full family of service offering.

Reporting to the Vice President Global Sales, this role partners closely with internal/external stakeholders to drive sales, strategic client relationships, and serves as the customer voice in those relationships to all other functions. This position will help drive Hargrove to deliver the best possible service via clear briefings and guidance regarding the client objectives asked to deliver on, either for a project or across a portfolio of activity.

Consistency and quality of service company wide is a key business driver, with a focus on the following:

• Sales: through the nurturing and development of opportunities from the candidate's existing networks and long-standing relationships, and through targeted pursuits and campaigns aligned with the business strategy

• People: opportunity, solution/structure, team alignment/resources per client requirements

• Process: using the Hargrove workflow processes that may include training, process, financial accountability, and business optimization

• Systems: CRM, ECT, Demand Planning and Opportunity Investment - all driving to financial management and target profitability goals

The VP of Client Experience

• Gov't & Public Sector will partner with the other VPs in the business and the SVP Operations on how to actualize around these four priority areas. The position will also influence a sales team of approximately 2-3 at Hargrove, plus many more as part of the Encore team interaction. This collaboration in addition to other relationships across the Encore business will aid in identifying key opportunities and closing on those through a strategic and measured approach, focusing on the longer term, larger relationships delivering customer success, while being as efficient as possible.

Key Job Responsibilities

• Sitting within the commercial, sales and client service function, this role serves as a key point of connectivity between clients and the Hargrove operational and corporate functions, including Creative, Strategy, CAD, Production, Fabrication, Graphics, onsite Operations, as well as Hargrove's internal functions such as Finance, Business Process, IT and HR.

Sales Leadership

• Serve as a thought partner to customers, and other sales team members to develop revenue opportunities, deeper relationships, and ultimately strategic accounts.

• Partner closely with key corporate functions to link strategic priorities (production, operations, creative, strategy, finance, etc.)

• Influence and prioritize opportunities with annual sales targets for financial investment, resource deployment and prioritization from proposal/RFP stage through to the close.

• Provide visible, engaged, broad-based strategic and tactical thought leadership internally, to customers and Hargrove's family of brand colleagues while collaborating.

• Develop and demonstrate deep client relationships that offer Hargrove and the family of brands a rich portfolio of client relationships and identified opportunities and event types within each client organization engaged with.

Sales Process Optimization

• Proactively identify sales/client opportunities net new and from past relationships as appropriate.

• Work closely with leadership to assess, prioritize and pursue opportunities while following the Hargrove processes.

• Partner with leadership in understanding process, any roadblocks/bottlenecks, and inconsistencies.

• From a sales perspective, facilitate a culture of continuous improvement, with the development of a culture of strategic client experience within the Hargrove community.

• Develop and implement strategies and processes that will enable Hargrove to drive significant revenue growth.

• Oversee the execution (from a customer experience/relationship perspective) of all projects, ensuring that deliverables are executed on time and as expected by the client and our business.

Sales System Optimization

• Implement enabling technologies, including CRM, ECT, Demand Planning as part of the process.

• Monitor compliance with required standards for maintaining CRM data.

• Contribute to estimating process to improve the quote, detail, and accuracy for customers.

• Drive implementation of clear scopes of work, client approvals, terms, and conditions, etc.

Sales Training

• Participate and contribute to sales training aimed at continuous improvement and personal development.

• Coordinate a consistent account onboarding process (for teams, for clients and departments) in terms of learning, technology, sales process and technology best practices for Hargrove and any other processes that are needed to be considered as part of the client organization.

People Management

• Develop, lead, and motivate a talented staff, necessary to support the growth as part of a matrix organization. Teams assigned may not be direct reports, but clarity and consistency are key to deliver on customer expectations.

• Promote, contribute to, and collaborate on work force development and training efforts to help improve service quality and increase customer satisfaction at appropriate cost levels.

• Other duties as assigned.

Job Qualifications

• College degree from an accredited institution; MBA preferred

• 15+ years of client relationship and sales experience with financial management responsibilities

• Excellent communication, presentation, commercial, and people skills

• Experience in the tradeshow, live events (including digital engagement) and exhibits industry

• Experience in the government sector

• Demonstrated proficiency managing sales technology tools and sales database proficiency

• Ability to collaborate across various functions including Production, Finance, HR, and technology teams

• Strong written and oral communication skills

• Positive approach to teamwork and problem solving

• Works well under pressure

• D.C. Based

Competency Group

Deliver World Class Service

• Hospitality

Do The Right Thing

• Situational Adaptability

Drive Results

• Drives & Directs

See The Big Picture

• Cultivates Innovation

• Balances Stakeholders

Value People

• Attracts Top Talent

• Builds Networks

For more information on our Competency Group, refer to the Competency Based Talent Management page on Encore Connect by searching for the title or copy & pasting this URL Link (https://psav.sharepoint.com/sites/HR/SitePages/Competency-Supported-Talent-Management.aspx).

Work Environment

Office

Work is performed primarily in an office environment. Working times may include irregular hours and on-call status including days, evenings, weekends, and holidays. Team members must adhere to appearance guidelines as defined by Hargrove based in an office environment and when traveling, on an individual venue or a representation of venues in that city or area.

The above information on this description is not necessarily an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties, skills, efforts, requirements or working conditions associated with the job. While this is intended to be an accurate reflection of the current job, management reserves the right to revise the job or to require that other or different tasks be performed as assigned.