Director Event Operations Jobs in Tennessee (NOW HIRING)

The Marketing Events Lead Assistant Director is responsible for leading the Event Lead team in planning, production, and operational delivery of a portfolio of complex, high-visibility, market-facing events while simultaneously managing their assigned events. This role combines hands-on event ownership with broader portfolio oversight, team leadership, stakeholder advising, and process improvement responsibilities.

The Event Lead Assistant Director serves as a trusted advisor and primary event partner for assigned business areas or strategic programs. The role translates business objectives into clear event strategies and detailed execution plans, establishes success criteria, manages budgets and resources, guides vendor and technology decisions, and oversees delivery from intake through post-event evaluation. The role independently leads assigned events and provides strategic direction, coaching, and quality review for Event Leads, Event Operations team members, subject matter experts, and other contributors.

This position contributes practical thought leadership to the event function by identifying trends, introducing scalable practices, improving the attendee experience, and recommending technology-enabled solutions. The Event Lead Assistant Director supports the Executive Operations and Events Leader in implementing function-wide standards, service expectations, governance, and reporting, but does not hold full accountability for the overall firmwide event strategy. The position requires excellent relationship building skills, conflict resolution experience, strong judgment, executive presence, project and financial management skills, and the ability to influence across a distributed professional services environment.

Responsible for strategic and operational leadership of the Event Lead team and assigned programs.

Team Leadership

• Lead, coach, and develop the Event Lead team, assigning work and resources based on business priorities, event complexity, capacity, and development opportunities.

• Set clear expectations for roles, deliverables, timelines, quality, and decision-making, and hold team members and contributors accountable for results.

• Provide day-to-day direction, feedback, quality review, and escalation support to Event Leads, Event Operations team members, contractors, vendors, and matrixed contributors.

• Build a culture of collaboration, ownership, knowledge sharing, continuous improvement, and consistent execution across the Event Lead team.

• Identify team capability gaps and development opportunities, providing targeted coaching, tools, resources, and process improvements.

• Model strong executive presence, sound judgment, adaptability, and calm decision-making in complex or high-pressure situations.

• Establish team priorities and resource deployment decisions based on business impact, complexity, risk, and capacity.

• Support the Director of Executive Operations and Events with resource planning, portfolio reporting, team development, strategic initiatives, and implementation of the broader meetings and events roadmap.

Relationship Leadership & Influence

• Serve as the escalation point for cross-collaboration teams, assigned accounts, leadership teams, and strategic programs.

• Develop trusted advisor relationships with senior leaders, event sponsors, and cross-functional partners by demonstrating credibility, responsiveness, and sound business judgment.

• Establish and maintain strong relationships and operating processes between the Event Lead team and Marketing, Sales, Communications, Finance, Procurement, Technology, Legal, Risk, and other critical event functions.

• Influence decisions through clear recommendations, business context, data, experience, and thoughtful assessment of risks and tradeoffs.

• Navigate differing stakeholder priorities, resolve conflict, and facilitate productive conversations that result in clear decisions and shared accountability.

• Anticipate stakeholder needs and concerns, proactively addressing issues before they affect relationships, timelines, or event delivery.

• Maintain stakeholder trust by communicating risks, constraints, changes, and required decisions early and transparently.

• Build relationships beyond individual events by developing a strong understanding of business priorities, stakeholder expectations, and recurring event needs.

Program Management

• Lead a portfolio of complex, high-visibility, and high-risk events from concept through completion, accountable for quality, budget, risk, stakeholder satisfaction, and participant experience.

• Translate business objectives into clear event strategies, success criteria, scope, roles, decision rights, and comprehensive project plans covering timelines, resources, logistics, technology, communications, risk, and measurement.

• Balance concurrent event priorities, capacity, budgets, resources, and dependencies, proactively identifying risks, delivery gaps, and corrective actions.

• Facilitate planning meetings, executive updates, and decision forums, clearly communicating status, risks, tradeoffs, recommendations, decisions, and required actions.

• Lead vendor, venue, budget, forecast, contract coordination, and technology decisions, ensuring solutions meet business, financial, operational, and attendee experience requirements.

• Direct pre-event readiness, live-event execution, contingency planning, issue resolution, and escalation management, making timely decisions as conditions change.

• Ensure events comply with firm policies and applicable legal, insurance, health and safety, data privacy, contractual, and risk-management requirements.

• Lead post-event evaluation and continuous improvement by measuring outcomes, synthesizing feedback, identifying trends, and translating lessons learned into scalable practices, standards, and process improvements.

• Operates with substantial independence on assigned events and portfolios, escalating decisions that materially affect firmwide strategy, policy, reputation, or major financial commitments.

• Leads through influence and matrixed teams; may assign work, provide coaching, review deliverables, and coordinate resources without formal direct-report responsibility.

• Makes recommendations on event approach, vendors, technology, budget tradeoffs, risk mitigation, and resource deployment based on business objectives and established standards.

• Acts as a bridge between event strategy and execution, converting firmwide direction into repeatable operating practices and bringing field insights back to function leadership.

• Progressive corporate meeting and event planning, production, and logistics experience, ideally within professional services or another complex, matrixed organization.

• Demonstrated success leading complex, high-profile events and managing multiple concurrent projects with significant budgets, stakeholders, vendors, and dependencies.

• Strong project, portfolio, budget, resource, risk, and vendor management capabilities.

• Ability to translate business objectives into event strategy, measurable success criteria, and actionable delivery plans.

• Strong executive presence, facilitation, written communication, negotiation, and relationship-management skills.

• Proven ability to influence decisions, resolve conflict, manage ambiguity, and remain composed in fast-paced or high-pressure situations.

• Experience coaching colleagues, directing matrixed teams, reviewing work quality, and improving operational performance.

• Strategic awareness with the ability to identify trends, recommend improvements, and help scale processes across a broader event portfolio.

• Strong analytical skills, including the ability to evaluate event performance, identify patterns, and make evidence-based recommendations.

• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, with strong working knowledge of event management, registration, attendee engagement, virtual/hybrid, and audiovisual technologies.

• High degree of discretion and ability to protect confidential business, client, participant, and financial information.

• Ability to build respectful, productive relationships at all levels of the firm and with external partners.

• 7 or more years of relevant meeting and event management experience, including responsibility for complex programs or portfolios.

• Bachelor's or associate degree in business, hospitality, marketing, communications, event management, or a related field preferred; equivalent relevant experience will be considered.

• Background supporting professional services, client service teams, executive audiences, or similarly complex stakeholder groups preferred.

• Ability to work flexible schedules, including extended hours during peak planning periods and live events.

• Ability to travel as needed for event delivery, planning meetings, team development, and departmental activities.

• Event industry trends, venue and vendor landscape, contracting practices, and event risk management.

• Event technologies, including registration platforms, mobile applications, virtual and hybrid platforms, attendee engagement tools, and event data/reporting solutions.

• Experience developing templates, playbooks, service standards, metrics, or continuous-improvement initiatives for an event function.

• Understanding of marketing and sales handoffs, event ROI, attendee data stewardship, accessibility, and sustainable event practices.