Events & Experiential Production Strategist
About the RoleAPR is seeking a seasoned Experiential (E&E) Production Consultant to join our 360 Integrated Center of Excellence (COE). In this role, you are the definitive authority on the experiential landscape, responsible for advising clients through the complex process of strategically planning, executing, and optimizing high-impact events & activations. You will leverage deep industry expertise to evaluate the best agency and production partners, ensuring that every branded consumer experience is delivered with operational excellence and financial precision. You will act as a strategic advisor to brands, helping them assess their total experiential investment, partner ecosystem, and operating model to ensure that every dollar spent is optimized for maximum performance and ROI.
Key Responsibilities:- Experiential Service Offering Development: Define and refine a cohesive Experiential Service Offering that builds upon APR's established 'assess, design, implement, and govern' framework, ensuring our services deliver client value in a scalable and repeatable way, while ensuring they are aligned with evolving market demands.
- 360 Integrated Business Development: Partner with APR's Growth and Client Solutions teams to strategically expand our footprint within prospective and existing client activation spend. By bridging the gap between high-level strategic consultancy and operational production excellence, this role will amplify APR's experiential expertise, identifying systemic inefficiencies and architecting bespoke solutions that drive long-term value and ROI.
- Experiential Strategy & Assessment: Conduct Ecosystem Maturity Assessments (EMM) to diagnose clients' current-state experiential capabilities, agencies, production vendors and ways of working. Design strategic roadmaps that help brands transition from ad-hoc, siloed project management to a sophisticated, scaled, and governed experiential ecosystem.
- Agency & Production Sourcing: Act as an expert evaluator of the experiential supply chain. You will navigate the industry landscape to identify the right agency partners and production vendors, auditing their capabilities, staffing models, and financial proposals to ensure they align with the brand's strategic intent and fair market value.
- Production Governance: Partner with APR's subject matter experts in implementing core best practice ways of working, including standardized estimate templates, event production playbooks, and marketer toolkits, intended to deliver transparency to the production process, enforcing protocols like triple-bidding and invoice validation to eliminate budget opacity and prevent unauthorized "parking" of funds.
- Data-Driven Performance Optimization: Partner with brand stakeholders to define success metrics that map experiential spend directly to business outcomes. Utilize APR's proprietary ACERO™ data platform to leverage real-time benchmarks and production related insights, allowing clients to prioritize events based on expected ROI and proven systemic value.
- Activation Advisory: Provide high-level guidance throughout the lifecycle of an activation. From assessing feasibility of early-stage creative against budget, to final fabrication and onsite logistics, you will ensure that the production plan remains fiscally disciplined without compromising the creative vision.
- Future-Proofing & Innovation: Stay at the forefront of industry shifts, such as AI integration in event concept development through to fabrication, lighting, interactive tech and immersive multi-sensory, experiential activations. Provide thought leadership to clients regarding the latest discreet/passive attendee data capture to provide attendee insights organically at events. You will advise clients on how to deploy these innovations to improve creative quality and efficiency, while managing the associated brand safety and data risks.
Qualifications- Deep subject matter expertise in the global experiential marketing ecosystem, including live events, retail activations, and large-scale consumer experiences.
- 10+ years of experience in event production and activations for major Brands, preferably across multiple markets.
- Proven track record in production consultancy, agency operations, or production, with a granular understanding of how experiential agencies and production companies function, price, and deliver.
- Strong analytical mindset, with experience in financial oversight, cost management, and the ability to identify and address budget leakage within complex production line items.
- Ability to act as a credible, senior-level consultant who can advise procurement, marketing leaders, and agency and production partners on maximizing the value of their experiential investments.
- Commitment to APR's core mission of transparency, efficiency, and data-backed decision-making.
