Development Manager, Southern Europe

Position Statement

This is an excellent opportunity to join the Hilton Development team supporting the Vice President of Development and regional team with the continued the growth of the business within Europe. The role will collaborate effectively with industry contacts, colleagues and competitors to assist in drafting and executing Hilton's development strategy for markets in Southern Europe, with a primary focus being Italy, with respect to Hilton's targets, brands and business model.

Position Summary

The Development Manager will be Hilton's in-market Development contact for Southern Europe markets and will be responsible for building and maintaining quality relationships with key stakeholders. They will gather and leverage market intelligence for the Development team, including evaluating and identifying business opportunities for brand expansion, supporting the deal-signing process in key markets, and enhancing Hilton's development exposure through various media and industry events. Responsibilities include maintaining and optimizing the deal reporting system, creating compelling business case proposals and presentations for diverse audiences both internally and externally and maintaining development tools and resources. Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to work independently under tight deadlines are essential for success in this role.

Key responsibilities

• Business Lead Analysis, Evaluation and Execution: Works effectively with the Vice President Development of Southern Europe, the wider Development Team and external parties to provide efficient and accurate assessment of business leads / opportunities, to achieve an early consensus of the project´s inherent risks and opportunities. Establish the appropriate prioritization and allocation of projects. In the short term and supervised by the Vice President Development for of Southern Europe, it is expected from the Development Manager to be capable and prepared to manage their own focused service leads, with an initial focus on the Italian market, through all internal and external processes (including negotiations and approvals) to convert those leads / projects into executed agreements.
• Industry Relationships Management: Establishes, enhances and maintains productive, quality working relationships with industry players (consultants, competitors, owners, investors etc.) with a view to actively obtain public market intelligence to understand what is happening in the marketplace with the purpose of always being first to market.
• Proposals, Presentations, Due Diligence and Development Authorities: Drafting a variety of proposals for Southern Europe leads you will be managing. In addition, you will also ensure a complete structured Due Diligence process is thoroughly conducted on those Southern Europe deals in line with Hilton Due Diligence Guidelines.
• Event Management: Manages the logistics and operation of several Hilton events throughout the year within Southern Europe, including but not limited to, development conferences and road shows; attends other EMEA hotel investment conferences as required.
• Development Marketing Collateral: Working closely with the regional development team, you will ensure that marketing collateral tailored for various audiences and events across Southern Europe is sourced from regional channels and aligns with corporate creative guidelines and brand standards.
• Hilton Corporate Profile: Maintain the corporate profile of Hilton in all external communications with industry partners, members of the investment community and other third parties as appropriate. In doing so, liaise with Corporate Communications to ensure all communication is in line with up-to-date corporate themes and practices.
• Hilton Portfolio: Maintain up-to-date knowledge of the Hilton portfolio of Brands and respective products initiatives and developments, to allow the Southern Europe Development Team to optimally position the individual Brands and Hilton Hotels within the market.
• O2O, Strategy Papers: Keep Southern Europe leads in O2O updated in a timely manner. Additional responsibilities include preparing initial drafts for Southern Europe documents requested by corporate (strategy papers, updates for VP meetings, focus deals excel sheet etc.) in coordination with and approval of the Vice President of Development for Southern Europe.
• Reporting & Support: Assists the EMEA Development team and senior leadership with deal summaries, analysis, reports, research, and presentations.
• Best Practices: Collaborates with other Development Managers to leverage best practices.
• Efficiency Improvement: Suggests ideas to improve departmental efficiency, increase exposure, and ultimately support growth.
• Budget Management: Maintain functional, general, and administrative activity within budget.
• Administration: Manage a transparent filing and administration system and acts as the first point of contact for many development-related queries.
• Ad-hoc Support: Actively handles ad-hoc requests to facilitate the smooth running of the development function and support regional teams.

What are we looking for?

Applicants will ideally come from a hotel / hospitality background having gained relevant experience working within a consulting firm or another similar in-house role.

• Fundamental grasp of real estate investment, finance and hotel operations.
• Accuracy, attention to detail, responsive and proactive behaviour.
• High proficiency in Excel, PowerPoint and Word.
• Strong communication & interpersonal skills at different levels.
• A self-starter with the ability to proactively anticipate business needs.
• Effectively manage a range of competing priorities and demands (strong time management).
• Results-driven, tenacious, able to work under pressure and openness to regular feedback.
• Strong analytical skills and decision-making abilities.
• Ability to work independently combined with a team spirit and desire to support a team.
• A desire for self-improvement and career advancement.
• Fluent in English and Italian languages.

Required Qualifications

• BA / BS / Bachelor's degree or equivalent in a related discipline (or relevant experience in lieu of).
• Experience in developing an expert level of analytic skills with the ability to present complex information to senior audiences.
• Ability to travel when required mainly for industry event and internal meetings.

Preferred Qualifications

• MBA / Master's Degree Hospitality, Sales, General Business, Real Estate certifications or education or equivalent.
• Prior industry experience (hotel operator, feasibility, consulting, sales) or substantial experience in similar roles.
• Previous experience in Hotel Development, Real Estate or Feasibility & Investment type roles.
• A solid understanding of and a passion for the hotel industry (e.g. operational experience) with experience of sales-driven functions.
• An aspiration to build a career in hotel development.
• Additional language(s) would be considered an advantage.