Sr. Manager-Housing and Program Management

Explore St. Louis; St. Louis (MO); On-site; USD 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Explore St. Louis is seeking an experienced housing and convention operations leader to guide citywide and assigned conventions, driving housing pace, forecasting, inventory utilization, risk mitigation, and hotel-community outcomes.

You will partner with hotels, clients, Sales, Finance, and Convention Services to strengthen performance and resolve emerging needs, while analyzing trends and providing actionable recommendations to leadership.

Responsibilities

• Lead housing strategy and performance for citywide and assigned conventions, including housing pace, pickup, forecasting, compression, inventory utilization, risk mitigation, and hotel-community outcomes.
• Serve as a key liaison with housing providers and collaborate with hotels, clients, Sales, Finance, Convention Services, and other partners to strengthen housing performance and resolve needs.
• Analyze housing and convention performance, identify trends, risks, and opportunities, and provide actionable insights and recommendations to leadership.
• Identify, develop, launch, operationalize, measure, and improve departmental programs that strengthen organizational capability, client and partner value, and destination competitiveness.
• Lead departmental performance practices including KPIs, post-convention analysis, customer feedback, SOPs, CRM utilization, training coordination, and continuous improvement.
• Lead the transition and assignment of incoming convention business to Convention Services Managers and Coordinators, considering client needs and resources.
• Maintain a department-wide view of current and future convention activity and align workloads and resources for successful outcomes and a healthy team environment.
• Provide direct convention service and planning-visit support when needed by volume or departmental needs.
• Build trusted relationships across Explore St. Louis and with hotels, housing providers, hospitality partners, community organizations, and other stakeholders.
• Serve as a Brand Ambassador for St. Louis and apply hospitality as an organizational capability by anticipating needs and facilitating connections.

Job description

Key Responsibilities

• Lead housing strategy and performance for citywide and assigned conventions, including housing pace, pickup, forecasting, compression, inventory utilization, risk mitigation, and hotel-community outcomes.
• Serve as a key liaison with Explore St. Louis’ housing provider and collaborate with hotels, clients, Sales, Finance, Convention Services, and other partners to strengthen housing performance and resolve emerging needs.
• Analyze housing and convention performance, identify trends, risks, and opportunities, and provide actionable insights and recommendations to departmental and organizational leadership.
• Identify, develop, launch, operationalize, measure, and continuously improve departmental programs that strengthen organizational capability, client and partner value, and destination competitiveness.
• Lead and support departmental performance practices including KPIs, post-convention analysis, customer feedback, SOPs, CRM utilization, training coordination, and continuous improvement.
• Lead the transition and assignment of incoming convention business to Convention Services Managers and Coordinators, considering client needs, convention complexity, staff capabilities, workload, and team capacity.
• Maintain a department-wide view of current and future convention activity and help ensure workloads and resources are aligned to support successful client outcomes and a healthy, sustainable team environment.
• Provide direct convention service and planning-visit support when departmental needs and convention volume require additional leadership capacity.
• Build trusted relationships across Explore St. Louis and with hotels, housing providers, hospitality partners, community organizations, and other destination stakeholders.
• Serve as a Brand Ambassador for St. Louis and apply hospitality as an organizational capability by anticipating needs, removing barriers, facilitating connections, mobilizing resources, and helping create the conditions for successful outcomes.
• Serve as a trusted operational partner to the Vice President, bringing forward insights, recommendations, emerging risks, opportunities, and solutions that support departmental performance, decision-making, and future planning.

For this role, we're seeking a talented and experienced individual who will bring initiative, sound judgment, adaptability, and a genuine commitment to hospitality, partnership, continuous improvement and team success; strengthening St. Louis as a destination for successful meetings and conventions. The successful candidate will be a solutions-oriented hospitality professional who combines creative thinking with operational discipline, analytical ability, strong professional judgment, and a collaborative leadership style. This individual should be comfortable moving between planning and execution, managing multiple priorities, interpreting performance information, developing new programs and solutions, building relationships across organizations, and adapting effectively in a dynamic hospitality environment.

Explore St. Louis offers a robust compensation and benefit package including medical, dental, vision, life and disability insurance as well as pension, paid holidays and PTO.

Explore St. Louis is the sales and marketing organization responsible for selling and promoting St. Louis as a convention, meeting site, and leisure travel destination. Explore St. Louis manages and operates the America’s Center Complex which includes the Cervantes Convention Center, the Dome at America’s Center, the Ferrara Theatre, and the St. Louis Executive Conference Center.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Statement: Explore St. Louis values diversity and we are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. All employment decisions are based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, age, national origin, physical or mental disability, past or present military service, marital status, gender identification or expression, medical condition or any other protected characteristic as established by law.