Company Description
The Australian Financial Review has played a central role in informing and charting the business life of the nation since 1951. In 2024, The Financial Review remains the essential daily habit of business decision makers, investors and those who promote national prosperity. The nation’s most-trusted newspaper brand has become a national institution, widely regarded as Australia’s premium business, finance and political publication and recognised for its news-breaking, agenda-setting and authoritative journalism.
The Financial Review is part of Nine, Australia’s largest locally owned media company. We pride ourselves on creating the best content, accessed by consumers when and how they want across Publishing, Broadcasting and Digital.
Job Description
AFR Live, The Australian Financial Review’s premium events arm, is looking for a high-caliber individual with insight, intelligence, curiosity, creativity, drive, strong business instincts and natural salesmanship to further extend Australia’s premier series of business events.
As an AFR Live Conference Director you are responsible not just for researching, conceptualising, and creating the agendas of the events in your portfolio, but also for ensuring that they are commercially successful, editorially relevant, and delivered to the high standards expected of the Financial Review brand. This requires you to work collaboratively with our marketing, operations and partnership teams, and the AFR newsroom, as well as with the top Australian corporates and policymakers from which we draw our speakers, sponsors and partners.

Day to day you will:

• Create high-quality editorial events and initiatives
• Design compelling and original agendas
• Identify and secure the very best “hard-to-get” speakers
• Develop a sponsorship strategy for each event and secure sponsorship revenue
• Ensure smooth, timely and high-quality delivery of events

Qualifications
This is a role with tremendous respect, breadth and autonomy, requiring a unique blend of creative and strategic thinking, high-quality content creation, commercial/sales skills, stakeholder management and project leadership. Capability, rather than a specific type or amount of experience, is the most important thing. The successful candidate might already have experience in professional conference production, or they might have demonstrated the skills and attributes we need in other environments (such as consulting, corporate communications, journalism, research, academia etc).

What we would like:

• Excellent research, synthesis and critical thinking skills
• Polished written and verbal communications skills, including writing ability
• Strong emotional intelligence and influencing skills - ability to understand the drivers of various stakeholders, secure their buy-in and cooperation, build trusted relationships, manage conflict etc
• A strategic, determined and commercially-minded approach to drive business success
• A highly structured approach to content production and project management, with experience managing projects to tight deadlines

Additional Information
Life at Nine:

Nine is a people business. Being part of the team means you’ll be in a culture that promotes creativity and innovation, diversity and inclusion, is open to feedback, rewards impact and ensures everyone is heard. Importantly, you’ll receive the following:

• Career development and quality training
• Up to 16 weeks paid primary carer’s parental leave
• Discounts on lifestyle, entertainment, and leisure memberships, including health insurance, dental and gym
• Discounts on products and services with corporate partners

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion:
At Nine, we are committed to fostering a workforce that embraces all aspects of diversity and inclusion and where practices are equitable to ensure our people experience a sense of belonging. From day one, you’ll be encouraged to bring your whole self to work and will be supported to perform at your best. Should you require any adjustments to the recruitment process in order to equitably participate, we encourage you to advise us at the time of application.
We encourage applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people with disabilities, and of all ages, nationalities, backgrounds and cultures.
Disclaimer: We do not accept unsolicited agency resumes and are not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.

LI-Hybrid

Please refer the Job description for details