Assistant Director of Banquets

AccorHotel • Chicago, IL

6d • Onsite

About The Position

Fairmont Chicago, Millennium Park is seeking an Assistant Director of Banquets to join their dynamic team. This role involves managing and supporting the Banquets department, ensuring seamless execution of events, and leading a team to deliver exceptional guest service. The position requires strong F&B operations experience, expertise in luxury event planning, and the ability to foster a positive work environment. The Assistant Director will also be responsible for administrative tasks, compliance with health regulations, and maintaining Fairmont brand standards.

Requirements

• Strong F&B Operations Experience with overall minimum 5 years of experience in Luxury resorts
• Minimum 2 years in a similar role
• High volume hotel experience is desirable.
• Expertise in luxury event planning, food and beverage operations, and exceptional guest service standards.
• Proven ability to lead, motivate, and develop a team, fostering a collaborative, high-performance work environment.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with a demonstrated ability to build strong relationships with clients, colleagues, and vendors.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment while maintaining poise, professionalism, and exceptional service standards.
• Flexibility to work evenings, weekends, and holidays as required by the event schedule.
• Successful candidates must be legally eligible to work in the United States.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with a unionized environment is an advantage.

Responsibilities

• Manage and support the Banquets department while ensuring thorough communication and understanding with all internal and external stakeholders
• Assist with overseeing the setup, execution and breakdown of all events: social, corporate, wedding, and internal events.
• Responsible for the appropriate and timely set up of all functions and meetings while maintaining standards of food, beverage and meeting specifications
• Supervise, lead, and motivate the Banquet team including servers, bartenders, house attendants and coffee crew towards achieving exceptional guest service results and complete associate engagement
• Facilitate payroll, reports, forecasts, point of sale procedures, inventory and budget for food and beverage functions
• Ensure full compliance with Department of Health regulations and standards
• Oversight of Banquet billing and reconciliation.
• Meet and exceed guest satisfaction by monitoring, evaluating, and auditing food, beverage, service offering and standards
• Foster a positive work environment resulting in colleague and leader engagement through consistent communication, garnering feedback and actioning measurable improvement plans.
• Control purchases and inventory by partnering with the Chefs and the purchasing department.
• Assist with the selection, training, development and career growth of banquet and event colleagues and ultimately the food and beverage division.
• Ensure all Fairmont brand standards and programs are in place and maintained.
• Ensure that sanitation, cleanliness and maintenance of the event spaces, kitchens & public spaces exceed expectations.
• Promote and enforce health and safety awareness as well as ensure the team has a complete understanding of the emergency procedures for the hotel.
• Contribute to the improvement of the overall hotel operation by contributing ideas, making suggestions, soliciting feedback and actively participating in departmental communication meetings.

Benefits

• Competitive Salary
• Employee benefit card offering discounted rates in Accor worldwide
• Opportunity to develop your talent and grow within your property and across the world!
• Ability to make a difference through our Corporate Social Responsibility activities

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Education Level: No Education Listed