Summary of the position

The Head of Events translates the long-term strategy of UICC into impactful strategies to deliver successful events that convene the global cancer community. UICC aims at providing platform for member and partner organisations to exchange best practices, forge new partnerships and share new ideas and opportunities. S/he will be responsible for leading, managing and developing a direct team of four people (and the various Committees/Contractors/Hosts established to design and implement the event) and collaborate with other teams in UICC to ensure that the UICC events promote key messages and are consistently implemented across the organisation. S/he will be responsible for delivering and developing the World Cancer Leaders’ Summit, the World Cancer Congress and any other major event that convenes members and the cancer community in general. The Summit and the Congress run in alternate years and have traditionally taken place in different countries around the world. [The next Congress is in Geneva in October 2022 for the first time since 2008].

Main responsibilities

The main responsibilities of the role are:

• Leading, managing and developing the events team
• Creating, implementing outstanding events which deliver a powerful programme which attracts delegates from around the world, both in-person and online.
• Develop with the CEO a set of KPIs for each event including financial targets, delegate numbers and delegate satisfaction measures.
• Developing short- and long-term plans and budgets for the events on a 3-to-4-year cycle.
• Conduct all negotiations with relevant organisations to ensure that robust contracts/MOUs are in place and are followed through to completion.
• Work with the hosts, sponsors and UICC’s partnership and membership teams to ensure that the event is fully funded and therefore financially viable.
• Working in close collaboration with all UICC teams to ensure that the events fulfil the needs of each team, providing a platform to promote UICC’s great work in cancer control.
• Report to the Board of Directors on the impact of the events and provide relevant information to facilitate their governance role and ensuring that the various Committees established for each event run smoothly and engage all the key stakeholders
• Acting as a UICC’s representative and spokesperson with hosts, sponsors, high-level leaders, delegates and participants.
• Lead any protocol activities as necessary in the framework of the events working closely with strategic partners like hosts, local governments and UN agencies.
• Contributing effectively to the management of UICC more broadly as part of the Management Team.

Skills and competencies

• Relevant advanced university degree in hotel/event management, international relations, marketing or equivalent.
• Minimum of 8 years’ experience in events, preferably in the not-for-profit or association sector.
• Demonstrated skills, knowledge and experience in the design and execution of events and all its components e.g., marketing, communications, PCO management, engagement activities for members, etc.
• Full understanding of how events benefit and impact a membership organisation.
• Demonstrated experience in delivering events virtually, face-to-face and/or hybrid. Knowledge of different platforms would be an asset.
• Proven experience in coordinating events for different purposes.
• Proven negotiation skills.
• Ability to work with and influence senior executives in the public and private sector.
• Experience developing and managing budgets and excellent financial management.
• Commitment to working with shared leadership and in cross-functional teams.
• Ability to manage multiple projects at a time and to work to tight timescales with others.
• Strong creative, strategic, analytical, organisational and personal sales skills.
• Strong oral, written and presentation skills.
• Proficiency in English; other languages will be an asset, especially French and/or Spanish.
• Computer literacy in word processing, data base management and page layout.

• The candidate should be eligible to work in Switzerland

Applications

Send your CV and motivation letter explaining how you think your skills and experience make you a strong candidate for this position to careers@uicc.org. Deadline for applications: 20 April 2022

Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

About UICC

The Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) is a non-government organisation based in Geneva which serves an international and diverse population of cancer organisations to unite the cancer community to reduce the global cancer burden, to promote greater equity and to ensure cancer continues to be a priority in the world health and development agenda. We have achieved this by building a membership base of over thousand organisations and engaging in partnerships with more than 60 organisations across the United Nations, academia, health and private sector.

UICC convenes members and partners to encourage collaboration and new thinking through keystone events (World Cancer Congress, World Cancer Leaders’ Summit and World Cancer Day). Through our capacity building activities, UICC supports its members do a better job tomorrow than they do today and increase their impact by scaling up their relevance, reach and sustainability in their own settings. With our members and partners, we drive forward the key advocacy priorities building upon key international agreements (eg the Sustainable Development Goals, the Global Action Plan on NCDs and the 2017 Cancer Resolution at the World Health Assembly) to ensure that these global goals and targets are translated into national action.

UICC has a team of 40 people based predominantly in Geneva, Switzerland led by a CEO, reporting to a Board of Directors. It has an annual income of approximately $10m and has plans to continue to grow in the coming years. The UICC works in excellent offices in Geneva situated close to the United Nations and the World Health Organisation, with whom it has formal relations.

In recent years, UICC has received international awards for its Congress, Summit, use of social media, website and membership engagement. We consider ourselves to be a top-quality NGO which aspires to deliver excellence at all times. UICC is proud of its people and invests in professional development. We aim to achieve a good  life/work balance. We conduct monthly staff engagement surveys to encourage employees to be actively involved in improving the way we work together. The survey shows that the organisation is a very good employer benchmarked to other organisations in the sector.

In addition, UICC offers its staff a range of advantages which include:

• an excellent pension plan (2/3 contributions from UICC)
• business travel insurance and loss of income insurance premiums 100% paid by UICC
• excellent office facilities equipped with new technology.
• The opportunity to work two days remotely per week*

*Subject to compliance to current Swiss regulations and those that apply to cross-borders employees.