Vice President, Corporate Events

VERSANT (Nasdaq: VSNT) is an industry-changing media and entertainment business and home to trusted brands that shape culture, inform audiences, and build lasting connections. It operates across four core markets: political news and opinion, business news and personal finance, golf, and sports and genre entertainment. These markets are served through a powerful portfolio of iconic and innovative brands, including CNBC, MS NOW, USA Network, Golf Channel, Oxygen, E!, SYFY, and Versant''s sports division USA Sports, along with complementary digital assets including Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow and GolfPass.

The Opportunity

Versant is seeking a Vice President, Corporate Events to set the strategy and lead execution for our highest-profile corporate, client, partner, and employee experiences. This leader will develop an integrated events and hospitality program that strengthens relationships, advances business priorities, and brings the distinct value of Versant's brands to life.

Reporting directly to the President of DPV, the Vice President will oversee the full event lifecycle-from strategic intake and creative concept development through production, on-site delivery, and post-event measurement. The portfolio will span enterprise moments, executive and leadership meetings, client and partner hospitality, major industry gatherings, brand activations, and experiences connected to Versant's golf, sports, news, and entertainment properties.

This is a highly visible leadership role requiring close partnership across Corporate, Revenue and Partnerships, Brand Marketing, Communications, business-unit leadership, and external partners. The successful candidate will combine strong creative judgment and hospitality instincts with disciplined operational, financial, and risk-management expertise.

This position has been designated as hybrid, generally contributing from our New York, NY or Orlando, FL office a minimum of three days per week. The role also requires frequent domestic and international travel and the flexibility to lead events during nights, weekends, and nontraditional hours as business needs require.

Why This Role Matters

Events create opportunities to turn Versant's strategy, brands, and relationships into meaningful experiences. This leader will a team of Event Managers to establish an enterprise approach to events and hospitality that strengthens connections with clients, partners, employees, and other key stakeholders while creating greater consistency, operational discipline, and measurable impact across the company.

What You'll Do

• Set the enterprise events strategy. Develop and lead a multi-year corporate events and hospitality strategy aligned with Versant's business priorities, growth agenda, brand positioning, and stakeholder needs. Establish an annual portfolio, planning calendar, prioritization model, and operating rhythm that enables teams to focus resources on the moments that matter most.
• Create distinctive, high-impact experiences. Serve as a strategic adviser to executive stakeholders and lead the creative direction and end-to-end delivery of major corporate events, executive meetings, industry conferences, client and partner hospitality, and brand activations. Partners across Golf, Sports, News, Entertainment, Fandango, and other businesses to bring Versant's portfolio to life around key properties and commercial opportunities.
• Build a high-performing events organization. Lead, develop, and empower the events team while establishing clear roles, capabilities, standards, and scalable ways of working. Build strong partnerships with agencies, production companies, venues, hospitality providers, and other suppliers, and oversee selection, contracting, and performance in partnership with Procurement and Legal.
• Drive operational and financial excellence. Own event budgets, forecasting, vendor negotiations, production standards, and financial stewardship. Establish repeatable playbooks, intake and approval processes, measurement frameworks, and risk-management practices that improve quality, speed, consistency, and cost discipline while supporting guest safety, accessibility, security, privacy, and responsible hospitality.
• Lead through partnership and influence. Collaborate closely with Communications, Marketing, Sales, Partnerships, Ad Sales, Finance, Legal, Security, workplace and technology teams, and business leaders. Provide clear executive and stakeholder communications throughout the event lifecycle, proactively navigating decisions, risks, contingencies, and competing priorities.

Measure impact and continuously raise the bar. Establish meaningful measures of attendee experience, brand impact, commercial outcomes, and operational performance. Use qualitative and quantitative insights, along with emerging trends in events, hospitality, experiential marketing, technology, and audience engagement, to continuously improve Versant's experiences

What You Bring

You are an experienced events and hospitality leader who can move seamlessly between enterprise strategy and live execution. You bring executive presence, creative judgment, operational rigor, and the ability to lead calmly and decisively in complex, highly visible environments.

Required experience and capabilities:

• 8+ years of progressively responsible experience in corporate events, experiential marketing, hospitality, live events, or related programs, including senior leadership experience and demonstrated success delivering complex, high-profile programs across multiple stakeholder groups and geographies.
• Deep expertise across event strategy, creative development, live production, guest experience, hospitality, financial management, contracting, vendor negotiation, and on-site operations.
• Proven people leadership, including experience building and developing teams and leading agencies, production partners, vendors, and other external partners.
• Strong executive presence and the ability to counsel, influence, and build credibility with senior leaders, clients, partners, and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Strong commercial and financial acumen, including experience managing significant budgets, negotiating commercial agreements, and balancing creative ambition with responsible financial stewardship.
• Exceptional communication, project-management, prioritization, and problem-solving capabilities, with sound independent judgment and the ability to remain resourceful and effective under pressure.
• Willingness and ability to travel domestically and internationally and to work nights, weekends, and variable schedules when required by events.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent relevant experience.

How We Do It:

• Trust: Build credibility through sound judgment, integrity, reliability, and responsible stewardship of Versant's relationships, resources, and reputation.
• Teamwork: Bring people together across functions and businesses, creating shared ownership and enabling teams and partners to deliver exceptional experiences.
• Transparency: Communicate clearly and proactively, ensuring stakeholders understand priorities, decisions, tradeoffs, risks, and progress.
• Agility: Navigate changing priorities and complex live-event environments with composure, adaptability, and decisive problem-solving.
• Entrepreneurial Spirit: Bring forward bold ideas, challenge conventional approaches, and identify new ways for events and hospitality to create value for Versant and its stakeholders.

Bonus points for:

• Experience in media, entertainment, sports, news, golf, hospitality, or another fast-moving, consumer-facing industry.
• Experience developing client and partner hospitality around major sports, entertainment, cultural, or industry tentpoles.
• Familiarity with event technology, registration and CRM platforms, measurement frameworks, and the use of audience insights to improve event performance.

Why You'll Love It Here

At Versant, you'll have the opportunity to shape an enterprise events and hospitality function across a portfolio of recognized brands spanning news, business, sports, golf, and entertainment. You'll work alongside leaders and teams across the company to create experiences that deepen relationships, support business priorities, and showcase what makes Versant distinctive.

This position is eligible for company-sponsored benefits, including medical, dental, and vision insurance, 401(k), paid leave, tuition reimbursement, and a variety of other discounts and perks.

This position has been designated as hybrid, generally contributing from our New York, NY, or Orlando, FL office a minimum of three days per week. Hybrid expectations are subject to change based on business needs.

Compensation: Salary range: LA $200-$230,000 plus bonus and LTI

As part of our selection process, external candidates may be required to attend an in-person interview with a VERSANT Media employee at one of our locations prior to a hiring decision. VERSANT Media''s policy is to provide equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, gender identity or expression, age, national origin or ancestry, citizenship, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy, veteran status, membership in the uniformed services, genetic information, or any other basis protected by applicable law.

For LA County and City Residents Only: VERSANT Media will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories, or arrest or conviction records, in a manner consistent with relevant legal requirements, including the City of Los Angeles'' Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, where applicable.

If you are a qualified individual with a disability or a disabled veteran and require support throughout the application and/or recruitment process as a result of your disability, you have the right to request a reasonable accommodation. You can submit your request to candidateaccessibility@versantmedia.com.

VERSANT Media is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. We include a good faith pay range for each position to comply with applicable state and local pay transparency laws and to promote equity across our organization. Actual compensation will be based on factors such as the candidate''s skills, qualifications, experience, and location and may include additional forms of compensation and benefits such as health insurance, retirement plans, paid time off, etc.

VERSANT Media is not accepting unsolicited assistance from search firms for this employment opportunity. All resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at VERSANT via-email, the Internet, or in any form and/or method without a valid written Statement of Work in place for this position from VERSANT''s Talent Acquisition team will be deemed the sole property of VERSANT. No fee will be paid in the event the candidate is hired by VERSANT as a result of the referral or through other means.