Victorian Racing Club VRC – Flemington VIC

Hospitality Operations Manager

Reporting to: Head of Event Operations

Purpose

This is the strategic and operational lead for food and beverage delivery across the Melbourne Cup Carnival (MCC), VRC Race Days and VRC owned events, providing culinary and operational leadership over all hospitality products, venues, and service models. This role holds overarching accountability for menu integrity, service excellence, operational readiness, and financial performance, and leads a team of Hospitality Leads responsible for Member, Retail and General Admission, and MCC hospitality operations. Working in close partnership with catering partners, Product, Commercial, and Operations teams, the role ensures the MCC delivers a world‑class, commercially sustainable, and operationally disciplined food and beverage experience at scale.

Stakeholders

Internal: C-Suite, Department Heads & Managers, Board of Directors and the wider VRC team.

External: VRC Members, Customers & Clients, Suppliers & Vendors, and Industry Networks & Associations.

Focus

MCC Food and Beverage Leadership

- Overall accountability for food and beverage operations across all MCC hospitality products.
- Leadership of Hospitality Leads, ensuring alignment across Member, Retail & GA, and premium products.
- Acting as the senior MCC F&B; authority during planning, build, live delivery, and close‑out.

Culinary Direction and Menu Governance

- Provide culinary leadership across MCC and year‑round menus, ensuring consistency, quality, and executional feasibility.
- Oversight of menu development with catering partners and talent chefs where engaged.
- Establish menu governance, approval processes, and production standards across venues.

Service Strategy and Operational Design

- Set service methodologies, staffing frameworks, and operational standards across all hospitality environments, for year-round optimisation.
- Oversight of floorplans, back‑of‑house flows, bar configurations, and guest journeys.
- Ensure operational designs support speed, quality, safety, and scale.

Stakeholder Management





- Senior operational relationship owner for catering partners and key suppliers.
- Collaboration with Product Owners, and all VRC Departments.
- Alignment of hospitality execution with broader MCC and VRC strategic objectives.

Commercial & Financial Accountability

- End‑to‑end oversight of MCC and year‑round food and beverage operational budgets and cost frameworks.
- Strategic input into pricing, yield optimisation, and commercial performance.
- Governance of financial tracking, forecasting, and post‑event reporting.

Risk, Compliance and Event Readiness

- Overall responsibility for operational risk management across food and beverage delivery.
- Ensure compliance with WHS, RSA, food safety.
- Oversight of readiness planning and contingency response frameworks.

Continuous Improvement and Legacy Planning

- Lead post‑event reviews and performance analysis across all hospitality products.
- Capture insights, trends, and innovations to inform future MCC and year‑on‑year delivery.
- Drive uplift in capability, consistency, and execution year‑on‑year.

Success Measures (KPIs)

- Delivery on CX and Member KPI’s in collaboration with Catering Partners.
- Uplift in catering and hospitality experience across member spaces.
- Operational efficiency in process and delivery.
- Support our catering partner in the delivery of quarterly KPI achievement.

Core Capabilities

- Extensive experience leading large‑scale hospitality and food & beverage operations across major events and high‑volume venues.
- Proven ability to lead senior operational teams and oversee multiple, diverse hospitality portfolios.
- Strong culinary foundation with deep expertise in menu design, production flow, and large‑scale execution.




- Skilled at translating culinary vision into operationally feasible and commercially successful solutions.
- High level of financial literacy, with experience managing complex budgets and large contractor partnerships.
- Ability to balance brand integrity, guest experience, and commercial performance in high‑pressure environments.
- Demonstrated success delivering major, multi‑day, multi‑venue events with consistently high standards.
- Highly organised, calm, and decisive when operating in live event conditions.
- Solid influencing and negotiation capabilities with senior stakeholders, partners, and suppliers.
- Trusted advisor to executive leaders on hospitality strategy, operations, and delivery.
- Ability to design integrated operating models that align people, process, product, and technology.
- Disciplined planning capability across workback schedules, readiness frameworks, and risk mitigation.
- Deep understanding of WHS, RSA, food safety, and event compliance requirements.
- Commitment to safe, well‑governed, and resilient operational environments.
- Proficient in Monday.com and similar project management platforms.
- Contribute to a positive and respectful team environment that values open communication, creative collaboration, and mutual support.
- Manage workload effectively, with guidance from leaders, to maintain a healthy balance between high-quality creative output and personal wellbeing.
- Support an inclusive workplace where diverse perspectives are valued, and feedback is encouraged, constructive, and solution focused.

Values

Think VRC: We deliver with one purpose and plan. We’re one VRC team.

Create Joy: We design every experience, for our members, customers and each other, to create joy.

Be Gutsy: We are grounded in our heritage; we’re brave and curious in our pursuit of a bigger future.

F-Learn: We fail but learn, treating setbacks as opportunities for growth.

Care Deeply: We genuinely care about each other: our people, our members, are customers and our community.

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📌 Hospitality Operations Manager (Melbourne)
🏢 Victorian Racing Club VRC
📍 Melbourne