Leisure & Hospitality Operations Manager – Delivering Deal Value

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In Deals we solve the important problems that stand in the way of value being created, sustained, realised or protected for our clients – working together to aid responsible recovery and growth.
We put together major mergers and acquisitions and resolve business crises – from international take-over bids to financial crime investigations and cases of insolvency. Our teams work on iconic deals with national and global clients as well as operating and investing in businesses, new ventures and entrepreneurs in our local market and communities. It’s both a responsibility and a privilege to guide our clients through moments that matter deeply to them. Our breadth of clients in an ever-changing market means we need to be agile – responding when we need to, in a way that really makes a difference.
We draw upon our deals experience across many industries to support and partner with our clients, to positively impact society and the communities in which we operate. The insight we create, coupled with the innovative tools and methodologies we use to access and evaluate the data that matters, contributes to the success of our clients in all Deals situations. We encourage our clients to think more broadly – connecting their actions today with their successes tomorrow. We help our clients throughout the Deals lifecycle to create lasting value for their businesses.
Each of our key areas within Deals, delivers services to the market individually or together by combining our specialists to provide comprehensive client solutions.
About the team

Delivering Deal Value (DDV) is a market leading team sitting within PwC’s Consulting business, assisting both Corporate and Private Equity (PE) clients in a wide range of high impact business situations. Most of our work is in the Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) space, both pre and post deal, however we can also deliver non-deal transformation projects. The M&A Deals we work on range in size from £50m to over £5bn and our clients include several of the most well-known brands and businesses in the world.
Our team of over 180 dynamic and friendly business professionals come from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines. We recruit proactively from industry, consulting, private equity and audit to create a great blend of experience on each project. Our variety of backgrounds helps us learn from each other and stay at the top of the market, delivering fantastic results for our clients on landmark Deals.
About the role
If you join us with prior experience in operational transaction services, you may have a preference for the type of project or business development work you take on. If not, then you are likely to start out working in a range of different services we offer, including:

• Pre-deal value creation advisory – where can we see value for our client in this deal?
• Buy and sell side operational due diligence – has the business been performing well? What could be improved to unlock further value for our client?
• Synergy development and review – where are the synergies between two businesses and how well has the plan for capturing these synergies been compiled?
• Carve out and divestment support – what does the standalone business look like, what support and transition services will it need to function? How can we help our clients execute the separation and ensure a smooth Day 1?
• Taking control and 100 day planning – how can our clients safely take control of the acquired business and manage risk whilst delivering quick wins through the first 100 days?
• Mergers & acquisitions integration – how can our clients protect and grow value following an acquisition, what is the right level of integration to achieve this and what does an effectively run integration programme look like?
• Post-acquisition performance improvement using our Rapid Value Creation methodology – where might value lie in the business and how can we generate sustainable cost savings?

A career in the DDV team is a unique and rewarding challenge. The work is often complex, with tight deadlines. As a result, the opportunity for personal and career development is extraordinary with great opportunities for progression.
Whilst the team is London based, the deal activity we support is global, therefore projects can involve travel which can be at short notice. Occasionally projects may also involve being based overseas for multiple weeks with trips home weekly or bi weekly and candidates should be prepared for this.
The team is structured by industry sector, with specialist cross-sector teams in Finance, Technology and Integration; we also work closely with our colleagues in ‘People in Deals’ who focus on the HR aspects of a deal. Although you will be aligned to a sector or specialist team, the type of client projects you work on will vary based on the demand and the current deal market, therefore a degree of flexibility is expected.
The Manager role is a leadership role at project level. As such, you will be expected to take on a leading role on engagements and management of project team members within 6 months and contribute to business development efforts where possible alongside your project responsibilities.
There are plenty of opportunities to get to know your new colleagues. Consulting is a relationship industry after all. We have weekly team newsletters, monthly team meetings and monthly socials, together with an annual away day. The team is a collaborative and supportive environment with lots of chances to socialise across our team and the wider business.
Essential skills and experience
Over 5 years of relevant Leisure sector experience – this could be in Travel, Hospitality, Gaming, Health & Fitness, Visitor Attractions, including:

• Operational line management experience, or experience in a change/transformation role
• Strong understanding of the end-to-end value chain within the business(es) you have worked in
• Relevant front or back office operational experience (e.g. Sales and Marketing, Operational delivery, Customer Services, Procurement & Supplier Management, Digital & e-Commerce)
• Change management, with ability to provide details of specific change initiatives you have led or been a significant contributor to
• Ability to quickly assess the performance of a business (or elements of it) and outline improvement opportunities and/or risk areas based upon limited information
• Ability to understand and implement commercial/operating strategy concepts and link impact to wider business operations
• Experience of developing internal/external networks with an ability to quickly form effective working relationships
• Comfort around financial analysis and understanding key operational drivers
• An ability to ‘read’ and understand business processes
• A demonstrated ability to operate on your own initiative
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Comfort and ability around report writing
• Good working knowledge of Excel and PowerPoint. Much of our work involves detailed analysis and report writing, so it is critical you can work with these tools

Nice to have

• Professional services experience, either as a consultant/ advisor or as an internal consultant/ advisor within a large corporate organisation
• M&A/divestiture experience
• Project management experience
• Experience leading (or being a significant contributor to) a significant restructuring or business change process
• MBA or other business management qualification
• Foreign language skills (oral and written)

Personality characteristics

• We work hard together, so we hire people who treat their colleagues well, who aren’t hierarchical and enjoy creating a happy culture even when under pressure
• Comfortable around C-suite or senior stakeholders, as most of our work is done at this level; you don’t need to be an extrovert, but confidence definitely helps
• Comfortable with uncertainty and excited by the idea that you may not know what country you’ll be in next week
• Naturally curious; we love people who can apply logic and problem solving to difficult business problems without needing to follow a specific rule book

Deals
Our Deals business is an exciting, fast-paced and an ever-growing business that focuses on deals and crisis situations for our clients. Collectively, we deal with the types of situations you hear about regularly in the news and we provide support, insight and analysis to the management, shareholders and financiers of business.
Not the role for you?
Did you know PwC offer flexible contract arrangements as well as contingent work (ie temporary or day rate contracting)?
The skills we look for in future employees
All our people need to demonstrate the skills and behaviours that support us in delivering our business strategy. This is important to the work we do for our business, and our clients. These skills and behaviours make up our global leadership framework, ‘The PwC Professional’ and are made up of five core attributes; whole leadership, technical capabilities, business acumen, global acumen and relationships.

Learn more here:
The Deal
We want all of our people to feel empowered to be the best that they can be, which is why we have ‘The Deal’.
Find out more about our firmwide Employee Value Proposition:
Diversity
Valuing Difference. Driving Inclusion…… click apply for full job details