A senior leadership role shaping and delivering commercial growth. Tasked with unlocking unrealised potential across venues and activities, influencing strategy, strengthening financial resilience, and driving data-led income growth, margins, diversification and new markets.
Key Priorities
- Develop and deliver a commercial venue hire strategy that diversifies income and achieves ambitious growth targets.
- Lead strategic development of bars, concessions, and food and beverage provision across all venues, including the Museum.
- Set and deliver a retail strategy to maximise gross profit.
Main Duties, Tasks and Responsibilities
- Develop and lead a forward-looking commercial growth strategy aligned with the charity’s mission and long-term financial sustainability.
- Identify and develop new commercial opportunities across the organisation, with a focus on maximising the potential of buildings, spaces, and public-facing assets.
- Drive growth across existing income streams (venue hire, bars, retail) while identifying and testing new, innovative revenue opportunities.
- Work with the Director of Marketing & Sales to ensure market insight, audience behaviour, and competitor analysis inform commercial decision-making.
- Report quarterly on commercial performance, risks, and opportunities to the Charity and Trading Subsidiary Boards.
- Provide strategic leadership of the venue hire function, ensuring strong pipeline development, yield management, and profitability across all hires.
- Lead on business development for new hire markets including corporate events, life events, conferences, filming, and expanded Museum use.
- Represent WTM externally, building senior relationships with businesses and stakeholders to strengthen reputation and generate demand.
- Ensure venue usage aligns with WTM’s brand and values, working with the Head of Programming to balance commercial hire with artistic and public programming priorities.
- Set pricing strategy, review and benchmark hire rates, and approve venue hire agreements, managing political or reputational risk in liaison with the Executive.
Strategic Development – Secondary Spend
- Line manage the Head of Customer Experience, providing strategic direction and oversight of bars, concessions, and retail operations.
- Set and deliver a performance strategy to increase secondary spend across venues, informed by review of current provision, contracts, and working practices.
- Lead development of the Museum food and beverage operating model, including contract and lease arrangements.
- Work with the Head of Development to identify sponsorship opportunities linked to bars and concessions.
- Set retail and merchandise strategy to meet gross profit targets, reporting progress to the Trading Directors quarterly.
Customer Experience
The Head of Customer Experience is responsible for operational delivery and reports to the Director of Commercial Growth.
- Provide leadership and oversight to ensure:
- Consistently high-quality customer experience for all WTM users, including visitors, audiences, hirers, partners, and artists.