Senior Director, Strategic Sourcing

This position is a key leadership role that leads the planning efforts guiding the development of Program Sourcing and Proposal Development for current and prospective clients. This role leverages Creative Group's brand assets, utilizing the iLab as applicable. The Senior Director, Strategic Sourcing is responsible for leading a team that creates innovative program proposals in partnership with Account Executives with the goal of supporting client objectives and helping to gain new business opportunities.

Critically, this role is charged with building the infrastructure — tools, systems, platforms, and skilled teams — that will elevate the department's capabilities in design, proposal development, and technology-driven efficiency. This includes championing the adoption of creative platforms (e.g., Canva, Adobe Creative Suite), driving automation and advanced usage of Cvent tools, implementing a budgeting platform for the team, and establishing a centralized digital asset library. The Senior Director not only implements these systems but ensures the team is trained, proficient, and continuously upskilled to leverage them effectively.

In addition, this individual consults on resource assignments, ensures delivery of high-quality services to our clients and a balanced workload for the team. In performing these primary duties, the position exercises discretion and independent judgment which directly impacts employee retention, customer engagement, industry relations, and retention. This role focuses on operational effectiveness, improvements, and team efficiencies to manage costs. The ideal leader is highly strategic and technologically savvy, with strong business acumen and a high degree of emotional intelligence — leading with process while building the systems and people needed to scale. This individual takes full ownership and accountability for outcomes, thrives in a transformational, change-oriented environment, and is equally comfortable operating within a shared-ownership model where success is achieved through collaboration across teams and functions.

• Must exhibit behaviors aligned with the organization's Vision, Mission, and Values.
• Recruit, develop, and retain a high-performing team by attracting top talent, providing continuous professional development, and creating growth opportunities that build competency in sourcing, design, proposal craft, and adopted technology platforms.
• Lead, mentor, and inspire the team to achieve excellence across all aspects of sourcing — serving as the primary coach on key opportunities, design thinking, proposal storytelling, and technology-enabled workflows.
• Foster a collaborative, inclusive departmental culture that embraces creativity, idea sharing, and cross-departmental interconnectedness — actively eliminating "us vs. them" narratives in favor of a "we" mindset.
• Optimize resources for efficiency and productivity by matching skillsets to client needs; oversee proposal quality checks and monitor sold programs through transfer to the Customer Experience team.
• Assess team performance consistently — delivering timely coaching, tracking results, partnering with relevant departments on training needs, and initiating corrective actions to close gaps.
• Recommend discipline and termination, if needed.

• Develop and execute a technology & skills enablement roadmap for the team, identifying competency gaps in tools, design, and proposal craft and building structured training plans to close them.
• Champion a culture of continuous learning, ensuring every team member achieves proficiency in adopted platforms (Canva, Adobe Suite, Cvent advanced features, budgeting tools) through onboarding programs, certifications, and ongoing skill assessments.
• Establish clear competency benchmarks for design, proposal development, and technology usage; track progress and celebrate mastery.

• Lead with high emotional intelligence — demonstrating self-awareness, empathy, and the ability to read and adapt to interpersonal and team dynamics, building trust and psychological safety across the department.
• Apply strong business acumen to connect sourcing and proposal decisions to Creative Group's financial performance, client value, and competitive positioning.
• Model personal ownership and accountability — owning outcomes end-to-end, holding self and the team to clear standards, and following through on commitments without being asked.
• Operate effectively in a shared-ownership environment, partnering across departments where responsibility and success are collectively held, and advancing shared goals without requiring sole control.
• Thrive in a transformational, change-oriented environment — embracing ambiguity, championing change, and guiding the team through evolving tools, processes, and ways of working with steadiness and optimism.
• Lead with process — bringing structure, discipline, and repeatable frameworks to how the team works, while balancing rigor with the flexibility a growing, changing environment demands.

• Build operational frameworks, tools, and best practices to scale the department.
• Lead the onboarding of creative and design platforms (e.g., Canva Enterprise, Adobe Creative Suite) to standardize and elevate proposal and program design output.
• Drive the adoption and advanced utilization of Cvent tools across the team, identifying automation opportunities (templates, workflows, reporting) that reduce manual effort and improve speed-to-proposal.
• Implement a budgeting platform for the sourcing team, establishing standardized budget best practices, approval workflows, and real-time tracking to improve financial stewardship and visibility.

• Collaborate with other department leaders to build, and maintain a centralized digital asset library encompassing photos, proposal components, and reusable content — making it the team's go-to resource for efficiency and creative inspiration.
• Establish governance standards for the asset library: naming conventions, tagging taxonomy, version control, usage rights tracking, and regular content audits to keep the library current and useful.
• Curate and continuously expand the library with best-in-class examples, supplier collateral, destination imagery, and proprietary Creative Group IP to leverage intellectual property at scale.

• Identify and lead the development and implementation of strategies and processes resulting in process improvement.
• Map current sourcing and proposal workflows end-to-end; identify bottlenecks and manual steps that can be eliminated through technology, automation, or process redesign.
• Identify and share best practices company-wide and across the job family.
• Standardize processes as needed, adapting these to meet the internal clients' (AEs') and external clients' expectations.
• Create and maintain documentation (SOPs, quick-reference guides) for all new tools, systems, and processes to support scalable onboarding and self-service.

Be a primary advocate for leading with strategy, ensuring all sourcing is rooted in the client's "why," clear objectives, and business goals.

• Leverage adopted design and technology platforms to create visually compelling, data-informed proposals that differentiate Creative Group in competitive situations.
• Integrate AI and data-driven technology seamlessly into processes, pushing boundaries and enhancing personalization.
• Identify emerging tools, technologies, and industry trends that could further automate or enhance the sourcing and proposal process; pilot and recommend adoption where ROI supports it.
• Champion strategic destination & venue curation, building local partnerships and optimizing logistics.

• Collaborate cross-functionally with Business Development, Customer Experience, and internal teams to deliver integrated, attendee-centric solutions from concept to execution — ensuring alignment across program elements, supplier communications, and client objectives.
• Build and maintain strong supplier relationships and a curated list of sourcing resources through active participation in industry events, Creative Group-hosted supplier events, and ongoing network development to support project scalability.
• Develop business insights from internal and external data to drive informed decisions, and partner with IT, Marketing, and Creative teams to ensure technology platform selections are aligned with enterprise standards and integrated with existing systems
• Collaborate with Learning & Development (or equivalent function) to co-create training curricula for new tools, design competencies, and platform adoption across the team

• Attend client presentations and support the sales process by representing procurement requirements, destination expertise, contract negotiations, and cost savings — developing strategies for new and repeat client proposals that give Creative Group the best chance to win the business.
• Champion the incorporation of the i|xperience methodology into program design, ensuring all proposals are customized, elevated, and aligned with client objectives and AE expectations — leveraging the digital asset library and adopted design platforms to maintain brand consistency and visual quality.
• Establish proposal design standards and templates within adopted platforms (Canva, Adobe Suite) so that brand stewardship is built into the workflow — ensuring consistency at scale rather than layered on after the fact.

• Bachelor's Degree in Hospitality, Marketing, Product Development, Business, or a related field
• At least 12 years in the M&E industry with 7 years of experience in group incentive planning with the focus primarily in Sourcing/Event Design or Development; design thinking methodology included, including at least 5 years of previous management/leadership experience
• Knowledge and understanding of global destinations and national hotel brands
• Demonstrated experience driving technology or platform adoption within a team — including tool selection, rollout, training, and change management
• Proficiency in latest versions of Cvent, Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Canva, Adobe Creative Suite (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator)
• Experience establishing or managing a digital asset library, content management system, or knowledge repository
• Familiarity with project management, budgeting or financial planning platforms

• Models behavior that reflects our organization’s vision and values