PROJECT DIRECTOR
Location: Rixensart - Frequent international travel.
Reports to: General Manager & CEO
Key interfaces: Client Director, Senior Project Managers, Studio, Head of Production, Business Development, Finance
Direct reports: Senior Project Managers, Project Managers and Project Coordinators of the BU
Contract type: Permanent, full-time
Seniority: 8 to 12 years of experience
ABOUT PROFIRST
Profirst is an independent brand experience agency, headquartered in Brussels with an office in Paris, active internationally for more than 30 years. We design and produce brand experiences for the most discerning houses in luxury, premium automotive, beauty, fashion, and lifestyle. Pop-ups, international press launches, immersive showcases, dynamic driving experiences, curated dinners, lifestyle activations: our formats vary, our standard does not. We turn occasions into lasting impressions.
Clients come to us for the precision and refinement of our delivery. We are now growing the senior layer of the Business Unit led by our CEO, Bruno Pani: the BU that carries our most demanding international portfolio, where multi-wave press launches, brand experiences for luxury houses and global lifestyle activations are the everyday standard.
THE ROLE
We are looking for a Project Director who runs international, high-end events end-to-end (strategically, commercially, and operationally).
This is a hands-on role. Someone who runs their projects, walks the build, owns the budget, drives the pitch, not someone who only supervises. Multi-functional by definition: equally credible in front of a Brand Director at 10am, on a production site at 6pm, and in a budget review at 9pm.
Someone who reads a brief and immediately sees the opportunity behind it. Someone who can hold the room with a client, then go and physically make the project happen, without losing the standard at either moment.
MISSION
The Project Director carries four things at once: a portfolio, the delivery, the budget, and a team. None of them delegated. All of them owned.
Four areas of focus
* Client portfolio & pitch: owning and growing a portfolio of strategic accounts. Becoming the trusted interlocutor at Brand Director / Head of Communications level. Building decks and presenting pitches yourself: concept, narrative, deck, room.
* A-to-Z event ownership: running each major project from briefing to debrief (planning, budgeting, production coordination, on-site execution). Hands-on, not orchestrated from above.
* Budget & profitability: managing event budgets of €1M+ with full P&L responsibility per project and across the portfolio. Negotiation, anticipation, recalibration.
* People & growth: developing the Senior PMs, PMs and Coordinators in your scope. Setting standards by example, not by memo.
SCOPE AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Client portfolio & pitch
* Owning a portfolio of strategic accounts with measurable growth over 12 months.
* Co-constructing each client’s event roadmap on a 12 to 18-month horizon.
* Leading strategic pitches end-to-end: brief decoding, conceptual angle (with Studio), deck building, pitch presentation, closing. You are the one in the room.
* Building and presenting client decks at the highest level (visual literacy, narrative clarity, confidence on stage).
* Developing the commercial value of each account: upsell, scope extension, renewals.
* Being the influential voice the client calls when something matters.
A-to-Z event ownership
* Running events end-to-end on your key accounts: briefing, conception, planning, retroplanning, supplier sourcing, build, on-site delivery, debrief.
* Coordinating closely with the Head of Production and the technical production team. You are not the technical lead, but you understand production deeply enough to lead the project with the production team, not around them.
* Owning supplier sourcing and negotiation alongside the team (venues, build, AV, lighting, F&B, hospitality, talent, logistics, mobility).
* Being physically present on site at the key production moments and on event day. The standard is held at eye level, not from the office.
* Stepping in personally when something needs to be fixed. Not waiting for a junior to escalate.
Budget & profitability
* Managing event budgets of €1M+: building them, negotiating them, defending them in front of the client, optimising them with suppliers.
* Owning the P&L of the portfolio: profitability per account, margin tracking, anticipation of risks, recalibration when needed.
* Closing projects administratively (invoicing, advance and balance payments, dispute handling) with the same rigour as the creative work.
* Bringing financial discipline as a creative constraint, not a brake: better choices, not fewer ones.
People, culture & leadership
* Coordinating, motivating and developing the Senior PMs, PMs and Coordinators in your scope.
* Building a formalised development plan for at least one team member per cycle.
* Leading by example: when you say “120%”, you do 120%. When the team is on site at 2am, you are there too.
* Contributing actively to internal rituals: agency meetings, culture initiatives, benchmark sharing.
* Bringing a never-say-no posture: always one solution, always one more option, always one more idea.
Profirst standards
* Active use of the AI tools available in the agency, integrated in your workflows to gain quality and efficiency.
* Contribution to the continuous improvement of Profirst’s processes and standards.
* Cultural curiosity and active benchmarking: bringing inspiration in from inside and outside the industry.
IDEAL PROFILE
Background
* 8 to 12 years of experience in international event project management, ideally with significant time in luxury, fashion, beauty, or premium automotive.
* Track record running events from A to Z on multi-stakeholder international projects.
* Demonstrated experience managing single-event budgets of €1M+ with full P&L responsibility.
* Experience growing accounts commercially, not only executing them.
* A background that combines an event / experiential agency with at least one immersion in a top-tier brand environment is a plus.
Skills
* Multi-functional & hands-on. Equally strong on the strategic, commercial, operational, and people dimensions of a project. You don’t outsource any of them.
* A-to-Z event craft. From briefing to debrief, you can run the whole project (planning, supplier coordination, build, on-site execution, debrief). Not just supervise it.
* Budget mastery. Comfortable building, defending and managing event budgets of €1M+. P&L thinking is second nature: balancing creative ambition with commercial reality, anticipating risks before they surface.
* Production literacy. Deep enough understanding of technical production (scenography build, AV, lighting, logistics, hospitality, F&B, mobility) to lead the project with the production team (without being the production lead).
* Pitching & client presenting. Comfortable building a deck and presenting it yourself in front of senior clients, in French or English. Visual literacy, narrative clarity, presence in the room.
* Influence at decision-maker level. At ease with Brand Directors, Heads of Communications, CMOs. Strategic reading of a brief: spotting the unspoken question behind the explicit one.
* Cross-functional leadership. PMs, Studio, Production, freelancers, suppliers. All aligned, all moving in the same direction.
* Languages. Strong written and spoken in French and English. Spanish and Dutch are a plus. Italian appreciated.
Posture
* Hands-on. Gets in the project. Doesn’t just orchestrate from above.
* Calm under pressure. Doesn’t lose the standard when timing tightens.
* Strategic and operational: equally at ease in a strategy session and on a production site.
* Naturally elevates the people around them: the team gets better when you’re around.
* Never stops thinking: there is always one more idea, one more option, one more layer.
* Standard-bearer of Profirst’s qualitative obsession: detail, hospitality, finish, care.
WHAT WE OFFER
* A strategic and operational role at the centre of the event department (international, premium, high-stakes).
* Direct access to leadership (CEO, GM, Client Director) and a clear growth path toward Client Director.
* A portfolio of accounts where what you do is visible, talked about, and creates references.
* A talented and disciplined team (Senior PMs, PMs, Coordinators) ready to grow under the right leadership.
* A Studio that brings world-class creative and experiential thinking to the table.
* An international, multilingual, demanding, and warm environment.
HOW TO APPLY
Send your CV and a short note on your two or three favourite projects (concept + budget + your role end-to-end) to hr@profirst.com
The process runs in three steps: an initial conversation with our General Manager and HR, a strategic and operational case study based on a real Profirst account situation, and a final interview with our CEO and Project Director.