Senior Event Officer

If you have the expertise and enthusiasm for event coordination, this could be the role for you!

Location: This position will be based at Peace Direct’s office in central London, where we proudly operate a hybrid working system of 2 days per week in the office.   

Peace Direct does not currently hold a sponsorship license and therefore if you do not have the right to work in the UK, we cannot accept your application.

The Role

We are seeking an experienced Senior Event Officer to assist with the coordination, planning and delivery of Peace Direct’s 2025 global peacebuilding gathering to be held in Kenya. The ideal candidate will have a proven track record of logistics management including international travel coordination for large numbers of delegates. With excellent writing and verbal communication skills, you will be highly organised and able to work to tight deadlines and prioritise tasks independently. You will be responsible for compiling a questionnaire to gather essential delegate travel information, booking international flights for up to 160 attendees, supporting the issuance of invitation letters for Electronic Travel Authorisations (ETAs), answering queries, following up with delegates, and assisting with other aspects of event coordination as required.

You will have experience in a similar role, including:

• Organising complex international travel bookings
• Organising complex information clearly and efficiently
• Using different platforms and tools to systematise information gathering
• Working under pressure to deliver to tight deadlines

This role is a 7-month contract specifically developed to help deliver and roll out the event. You will be responsible for handling international travel arrangements (100+ bookings), including flights, hotels, and transportation. You will have a solid background evidencing strong communication and interpersonal skills and the ability to build a smooth rapport with internal and external stakeholders critical to the success of the event. Stakeholders will include travel suppliers, international peacebuilders and various other suppliers.

We are looking for someone who can hit the ground running with a keen eye for detail to ensure a professional standard is maintained - even under work pressures - and with budget management experience (up to $250k), ensuring cost-effectiveness and adherence to time constraints.

Who we are
Peace Direct is an international charity with a vision for a just world, free from violent conflict. Working in partnership with local peacebuilders in some of the world’s most conflict-affected places, we want to change the international system so that it better supports the role that local people and communities play in preventing violence and building and sustaining peace. More than that, we want to change the international system so that it better supports the role that local people and communities play in preventing violence and building and sustaining peace.

This position is based in our small, friendly Central London office, working alongside a highly committed, talented and diverse team.

Still interested? Take a look at the job description to see full details about the role and whether it matches your skills, career goals and experience.

How to Apply: Please send your CV and a cover letter detailing relevant experience and why you are passionate about event coordination via Charity Jobs.

Your covering letter should be no longer than two sides of A4. Please indicate in your cover letter, should you choose to, whether you are applying through the Disability Confident Scheme.

We also offer candidates the choice of submitting a video clip (ie. a video cover letter) if this is preferable to a written cover letter. To ensure fairness we suggest you turn the camera off so that we only hear your voice. The video should be no more than 2 minutes in length. You should email it as a video link via WeTransfer or any other file sharing tool, to our recruitment inbox, the address of which you will find on the jobs page of our website as unfortunately the Charity Jobs website does not permit a url to be inserted here.

For the video cover letter, the following should guide your speaking points:

• Your name;
•  The job you are applying for;
• Describe your overall skills and abilities (as they relate to the post being advertised);
• A brief description of your work experience (in relation to the post being advertised);
• What makes you qualified for the new position;
• Any additional details that help introduce yourself

You should choose either a written cover letter or a video cover letter, but we request that you please DO NOT submit both.

Closing deadline for CV and cover letter is 9am on Monday 17th March 2025.
Shortlisted candidates will be asked to complete a short supplementary information form.

Interviews will be held online on Monday 24th and Tuesday 25th March 2025.

Peace Direct strives to be a diverse and inclusive employer, with equality of opportunities regardless of personal identity, and we are committed to improving our systems and ways of working to support this, including creating a Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) working group, DEI strategy and recruitment guidelines. We strongly encourage individuals from disadvantaged and underrepresented backgrounds to apply, including Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME), LGBTQ+, people with disabilities and people with mental health challenges.

We welcome people from all backgrounds and strongly advocate our DEI policy and commitment to maintain an inclusive workplace culture; we take pride in being inclusive, fair, equitable and transparent, so we welcome a conversation about any DEI concerns you may have.  Please contact our HR Manager, Lesley Agbarakwe. What’s important isn’t your level of education or the opportunities which you have had; it’s about your passion and how you seize the opportunities ahead of you to use your skills and knowledge in this field of work.

Our values and commitment to safeguarding

All offers of employment will be subject to satisfactory references and appropriate screening checks, which includes criminal records (DBS) checks. Peace Direct also participates in the Inter Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme (MDS). In line with this Scheme, we will ask your consent to request information from previous employers about any findings of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and/or sexual harassment during employment, or incidents under investigation after having left previous employment.

By submitting an application, the job applicant confirms their understanding of these recruitment procedures.

Peace Direct is committed to preventing any type of unwanted behaviour at work including sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse, lack of integrity and financial misconduct; and committed to promoting the welfare of children, young people, adults and beneficiaries with whom Peace Direct engages. Peace Direct expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment through our code of conduct. We place a high priority on ensuring that only those who share and demonstrate our values are recruited to work for us.

The post holder will undertake the appropriate level of training and is responsible for ensuring that they understand and work within the safeguarding policies of the organisation.

Peace Direct is committed to preventing and protecting all people from harm in their interactions with us. We expect all those that act in our name to uphold our approach to doing no harm and to sign up to our Safeguarding policy and Code of Conduct.

As part of being a Disability Confident Committed employer, we welcome people with disabilities or health challenges to apply and those who meet our Essential requirements as laid out in the job specification will be guaranteed an interview for the job for which you are applying, through our Disability Confident scheme (formerly known as the Guaranteed Interview Scheme).