We're Hiring: Venue Development Manager
Location: United Arab Emirates (Remote)
Employment Type: Full-Time
Experience Level: Mid-Level to Senior
Work Arrangement: Fully Remote
About Us
We are a globally focused organization developing and operating high-quality venues, entertainment destinations, commercial spaces, cultural facilities, hospitality environments, and customer-focused experiences across diverse markets.
Our teams work across Development, Real Estate, Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Operations, Commercial, Finance, Marketing, Legal, Government Relations, and external partners to identify opportunities, develop compelling venue concepts, and deliver commercially successful destinations.
The Role
We are seeking an experienced Venue Development Manager to lead the planning, development, delivery, and optimization of new and existing venues.
The ideal candidate will combine commercial, development, project-management, operational, and stakeholder-management expertise to take venue opportunities from initial concept and feasibility through design, approvals, construction, commissioning, launch, and post-opening optimization.
Key Responsibilities
- Develop and implement venue development strategies aligned with organizational and market objectives.
- Identify and evaluate opportunities for new venues, expansions, redevelopments, relocations, and venue upgrades.
- Conduct market, demographic, customer, competitor, and location analysis to assess development opportunities.
- Prepare feasibility studies, development assessments, business cases, and investment recommendations.
- Evaluate site suitability, accessibility, infrastructure, surrounding development, customer catchment, and commercial potential.
- Develop venue concepts, functional requirements, capacity plans, space programs, and operational concepts.
- Coordinate with Architecture, Engineering, Design, Construction, Operations, Commercial, Finance, and other stakeholders.
- Establish development plans, project schedules, budgets, milestones, dependencies, and resource requirements.
- Manage external architects, consultants, engineers, contractors, developers, operators, and specialist suppliers.
- Coordinate design development and ensure venue requirements are incorporated into project specifications.
- Review layouts, circulation, customer journeys, back-of-house areas, service areas, technical infrastructure, and operational spaces.
- Ensure venue concepts support customer experience, operational efficiency, accessibility, safety, security, and commercial performance.
- Coordinate planning applications, permits, approvals, licenses, and regulatory requirements with relevant stakeholders.
- Support government and authority engagement related to venue development and approvals.
- Manage development budgets, cost plans, forecasts, and financial controls.
- Monitor project expenditure and identify opportunities for cost optimization without compromising quality or functionality.
- Coordinate procurement and contractor selection in collaboration with Procurement and Commercial teams.
- Establish project governance, reporting structures, decision-making processes, and escalation procedures.
- Monitor design, construction, fit-out, equipment installation, technology integration, and commissioning activities.
- Identify development risks and implement mitigation and contingency plans.
- Coordinate venue technology, ticketing, access control, audiovisual, security, connectivity, building systems, and operational technologies.
- Ensure venues are designed for efficient event operations, crowd management, maintenance, logistics, and future flexibility.
- Coordinate operational readiness activities before opening, including staffing, procedures, systems, suppliers, training, and testing.
- Support venue opening plans, soft launches, commissioning, testing, inspections, and operational handover.
- Coordinate defect identification, snagging, rectification, and closeout activities.
- Ensure all project documentation, drawings, warranties, manuals, certificates, and asset information are properly handed over.
- Establish post-opening performance reviews and identify opportunities for operational and commercial improvement.
- Evaluate venue utilization, customer experience, revenue opportunities, operating costs, and asset performance.
- Support venue expansion, refurbishment, redevelopment, and lifecycle improvement programs.
- Maintain accurate development trackers, risk registers, budgets, schedules, approvals, and project documentation.
- Provide regular management reports covering progress, risks, costs, decisions, dependencies, and development performance.
- Promote sustainable design, energy efficiency, responsible resource use, and long-term asset resilience.
- Ensure development activities comply with applicable safety, accessibility, environmental, legal, regulatory, and organizational requirements.
- Support the development of standardized venue specifications, development guidelines, and lessons-learned frameworks.
- Identify opportunities to improve development processes through technology, data, modular design, automation, and innovative venue solutions.
Key Performance Indicators
- Venue development project delivery against approved schedules.
- Development budget adherence and cost variance.
- Feasibility and business-case accuracy.
- Development pipeline progression.
- Site and investment assessment turnaround time.
- Approval and permitting performance.
- Design milestone completion.
- Construction and fit-out milestone performance.
- Project risk identification and mitigation.
- Cost optimization and value-engineering results.
- Contractor and consultant performance.
- Procurement and contracting cycle time.
- Venue readiness at opening.
- Defect and snag closure performance.
- Commissioning and testing completion.
- Operational handover quality.
- Venue capacity and utilization.
- Revenue-generation potential and commercial performance.
- Customer experience and satisfaction.
- Accessibility and safety compliance.
- Energy and resource efficiency.
- Technology and systems readiness.
- Stakeholder satisfaction.
- Post-opening issue resolution.
- Development process improvement.
- Return on development investment.
Ideal Candidate
The successful candidate should have strong experience in venue development, real estate development, entertainment destinations, hospitality, commercial property, events, leisure facilities, construction, or major capital projects.
The candidate should demonstrate:
- Strong understanding of venue development and the full property development lifecycle.
- Experience managing complex development or redevelopment projects.
- Strong commercial and financial analysis capabilities.
- Experience with feasibility studies, business cases, budgets, and investment analysis.
- Understanding of architecture, engineering, construction, fit-out, and commissioning processes.
- Strong project-management and organizational skills.
- Experience managing architects, consultants, contractors, operators, and specialist vendors.
- Strong stakeholder-management and communication capabilities.
- Understanding of customer experience, venue operations, event requirements, and commercial considerations.
- Familiarity with planning, permitting, regulatory approvals, health and safety, and accessibility requirements.
- Ability to manage multiple projects, priorities, risks, and deadlines simultaneously.
- Strong analytical, negotiation, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
- Experience working with international and distributed teams.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills in English.
- Proficiency with project-management, reporting, financial, design-review, and collaboration tools.
- A strategic, commercially minded, detail-oriented, and delivery-focused approach.