Events Manager/ Activity Planning Manager - Food Trading
Based at Asda House in Leeds

About the role:
Events are a key part of our business –helping our customers celebrate key moments like Christmas, Easter & Mother’s Day, driving a point of difference in the market and showing our Asda personality. So whether this is delivering a fantastic Halloween event or one of our famous baby events, you’ll find yourself working in an exciting, fast paced environment with a great team. You’ll be working collaboratively with Trading, Category Execution, Marketing, Supply and Retail Operations.
You will drive a compelling, customer driven Events strategy, designed to deliver business performance ahead of the market. You will work closely with key stakeholders to ensure our plans are closely aligned to our overall strategy, implementing integrated plans, improving process, tracking commercial performance & shaping future strategy.
This role provides a great opportunity to work closely with all levels within the business up to senior leadership as well as regular engagement with the corporate marketing teams and collaboration with the wider activity planning teams in Food & General Merchandise. You’ll be working across a broad remit, cross functionally so you should be inquisitive, analytical and willing to challenge, with the ability to engage & influence key stakeholders across the business. As well as your own team, you will be working closely with and leading colleagues so excellent coaching & leadership skills are a must.
The Ins & Outs:

Develop a clearly defined Events strategy, aligned to our overall customer & commercial plans, supported by customer trends & category priorities

Lead the Events Autopsy process –with clear performance analysis, customer insight, competitor activity & retail / Eat What You Cook (EWYC) feedback

Ensure we have an “Easy Fast and Friendly” events process with stakeholders to deliver operationally simple solutions for stores across all activity

Drive an effective critical path process, ensuring key milestones are delivered & key stakeholders engaged throughout

Work collaboratively with key stakeholder teams to ensure the Modular builds are aligned to the strategy & ensuring the event delivers impact to the customer through the product choice and value message

Deliver a compelling store communications package right first time

Manage individual and team performance against role and objectives through talent and appraisal processes

What You’ll Need:

A proven track record in a similar events/ activity planning role

Good organisational skills and attention to detail

Cultivate strong relationships across the wider business functions, engaging them on our events strategy

The ability to work at pace and prioritise effectively for self and team

Strong line management, coaching and leadership skills

Effective communication and the ability to engage at all levels of the business

Have a customer & commercial mindset, ensuring we deliver the best events plan for our customers, so that they can Save Money, Live Better

Be commercially astute – analysis of data and management information to make informed decisions

Combination of collaborative working style with ability to challenge where necessary

Able to demonstrate resilience, agility and a positive approach