Venue Manager

***JOB DESCRIPTION***

Position: Venue Manager

Location: Doha, Qatar

Executive Summary

OliOli opened a second location in Doha, Qatar, and is inviting all people interested to join an amazing group of people and help their mission to deliver exciting, joyful, differentiated, world-class, and incredibly fun experiences to children that nurture their innate sense of curiosity and exploration.

OliOli (means joy in the Hawaiian language) is a multiple award-winning contemporary children's museum that opened to rave reviews in 2017. Founded by a group of parents who are passionate about open-ended non-judgmental play, OliOli entails 6 interactive galleries comprising over 45 hands-on exhibits.

The awesome team at OliOli comes from over 18 countries, including France, Taiwan, Kenya, Germany, India, Sri Lanka, Philippines, South Africa, Mexico, Ghana, Algeria, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Egypt, and North Macedonia. Find out more information about OliOli @ or .

The Venue Manager will be the brand ambassador for OliOli and will lead the day-to-day operations at OliOli Doha. Among other things, they will be responsible for (a) adhering to the OliOli brand standards and values (b) embedding OliOli Doha within the local community, and all aspects of guest engagement and satisfaction including actively leading/inspiring a team of ca. 40 professionals, (c) implementing the creative calendar (events, activations, camps, installations, and so on) provided by the corporate office, (d) contributing to a culture of flawless execution of guest experiences and continuous improvement, (e) overseeing the back-of-house functions including HR, Admin, Procurement, Finance, and Operations (f) taking ownership of the financial performance of the venue, including through providing leadership to the sales & marketing team (g) overseeing the facilities management including exhibits and (h) reporting to and collaborating with OliOli corporate office.

FOUNDERS BACKGROUND

We are young parents who have been blessed to follow our dream. Our dream is for children to be happier, more creative, more imaginative, more informed, inspired, aware, balanced and amazed. We aim to see joy on the faces of children.

KEY DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

Guest Engagement / Satisfaction:

• Take full ownership of leading all aspects of guest engagement/satisfaction.
• Ensure that all children/guests visiting OliOli Doha have an awesome and memorable experience through a highly talented, effective, kind and committed frontline team. Ensure that OliOli Doha delivers the highest quality, world-class and memorable experiences to children and their families that is aligned with its developmental objectives.
• Establish OliOli Doha as the preferred venue for families to visit for children's play activities
• Articulate OliOli Dohas value proposition as an informal learning environment to local schools, nurseries, pedagogical experts and authorities leading to repeat visitation by educational institutions on a periodic basis.
• Guest feedback:

Accurately measure and respond to guest satisfaction on a periodic basis:

• Effectively collect information from guests to understand how they spend their time in the space and how we can improve that experience through (a) reviews (b) frontline team and (c) guest interactions.
• Spend time on the floor, particularly during special program implementation to understand guest feedback and address it as appropriate.
• Structured compilation and sharing of the guest feedback with colleagues to address the complaints raised and avoid similar problems in the future.

Leadership:

• Maintain the OliOli Doha team in collaboration with OliOli corporate office.
• Ensure that the team has a thorough understanding of why OliOli Doha exists, and why we do what we do.
• Contribute towards a positive, genuine, team-based, guest-first centric culture.
• Keep team morale high through recognition, motivation, training & development, collaboration, and so on.
• Supervise and oversee the performance of the frontline team; assess/evaluate and provide constructive feedback regularly with a continuous focus on their development and on improving guest satisfaction.
• Bring positive energy to the floor, and inspire the frontline team to ensure that kids/guests are having an amazing time.
• Develop and implement a training calendar for the frontline team that enables them to excel at engaging with guests in a meaningful way; bring in external experts as/when appropriate and necessary.
• Ensure and enable transparent/effective communication within the team.
• Address team concerns, constraints, and grievances in an empathetic and compassionate manner.
• Work with local colleges and other institutions to identify and create a pool of part-time talent; develop and implement training programs to ensure they are able to deliver to the OliOli standard.

Commercial:

• Optimize revenue (while adhering to brand standards) by focusing on sales and marketing efforts that are unique to the local market; collaborate closely with corporate office in relation to marketing campaigns and calendar.
• Take full ownership of the profitability of the venue by carefully balancing complex and competing priorities.
• Prepare monthly reports for the overall performance of the venue in accordance with the budgets and KPIs.

Implementing the creative calendar:

• Create the execution framework to deliver a variety of creative programs throughout the year.
• Develop a solid understanding of the programs and prepare the execution plan on a quarterly basis; prep the team and ensure they have clarity/visibility of expectations from them in relation to the programming activities.
• Take a particularly hands-on (on the floor) approach during bigger events and activations; speak with guests on a daily basis during such times to understand feedback and opportunities for improvement.
• Work with other colleagues to prepare a detailed debrief for each program.

Physical infrastructure:

• Through the dedicated facilities team ensure that the premises are safe, clean and presentable at all times + that all the exhibits and equipment are in good working condition.

Operations/admin:

• Manage the staffing schedule to optimize guest experience and satisfaction.
• Be responsible for all other administrative and operational aspects of the venue.
• Create mechanism with the creative to allow team members to submit ideas and carry through from concept to delivery.
• Engage with government authorities on an as needed basis for smooth running of the operations of the museum.
• Perform any other duties required to successfully establish the museum and sustain that success over the years.

QUALIFICATIONS

The ideal candidate will be empathetic, kind, compassionate, and thoughtful, with substantive experience/insight in caring for children and visitors within organizations of a similar mold. She/he must have strong interpersonal and communications skills, be creative, self- directed, energetic, a team player, and have a relevant background for this position. The candidate must have strong and demonstrable leadership and management skills, the ability to build collaborative relationships, a track record of results, and a passion for working with kids.

Leadership

The ideal candidate will be a strong, dynamic leader who takes initiative and gets things done, and who is able to transform vision and ideas into concrete and high-impact programs. The ideal candidate will have experience in starting a venue and/or leading it through a transformative period of positive growth and change, and will have an impressive track record of building a solid foundation from which a successful and sustainable organization can grow. The preferred candidate will possess a leadership style that is direct and decisive, yet also empowers and encourages others to take initiative. The right person will recognize staff for their accomplishments and provide feedback concerning performance. He or she will be available, approachable and open to ideas from all team members.

Communication

The ideal candidate will be affable, personable, and a compelling spokesperson who is able to articulate the mission of OliOli Doha to diverse audiences and able to rally people around a vision. The ideal candidate will be able to interact effectively one-on- one with small groups, as well as successfully deliver formal presentations to large audiences.

Passion for Children

The right candidate will have a demonstrated passion around children and their emotional, physical, and intellectual development.

Team Building

She or he will have the ability to remain flexible and creative in a challenging work environment. The selected individual will possess the demonstrated ability to recruit and develop a leadership team that works in an integrated way to achieve major goals.

Character

The Venue Manager should demonstrate honesty and integrity beyond reproach. The selected candidate will be a guest-centric problem-solver who is well organized and remains calm under pressure. The ideal candidate will possess a drive for excellence and innovation and will encourage entrepreneurial thinking throughout the organization. This individual will have a mature, healthy sense of self-assurance and be able to listen to alternative methods for reaching goals.

Background

A minimum of 8 years of progressively responsible experience in a comparable organization is strongly preferred.

TRAITS & CHARACTERISTICS

• Can set the agenda for the organization and align/motivate the team to deliver against the museums objectives.
• Truly passionate and driven in delivering a great experience to children.
• Guest-centric in terms of professional priorities.
• Deep knowledge of operations well-tested in terms of working in high-pressure environment and demanding places with high traffic.
• Respected by staff; culture carrier capable of instituting the right culture.
• Lots of energy; articulate in terms of communicating the vision, mission of the venue to visitors, etc.