point person

point person (plural point persons or point people)

1. The person in the most prominent position on something, such as a spokesperson or manager.
   • 2013, Camille Zarrelli, Top Ten Things: Every Bride Should Do When Planning Her Wedding, →ISBN:

     Unfortunately, not every bride-to-be can afford to hire a wedding planner to help her prepare for her big day. Rather than trying to oversee the events of the day yourself, why not assign someone the duty of acting as your point person? A point person is someone who will be responsible for making sure that deliveries are received, that the room is set up properly, and the bride and groom show up on time.

   • 2017, Gerry Souter, Buying and Selling Multimedia Services, →ISBN:

     The ideal bridge between the company and the production vendor's team is the point person (project manager, contact person, lead person, or liaison) and at least one backup point person.

   • 2018, Sandra Schamroth Abrams, Xiaojun June Chen, Michael P. Downton, Managing Educational Technology, →ISBN:

     Finally, the initial contact often becomes the project's point person, helping to organize, motivate, and communicate with participants throughout the project.

2. One who goes ahead of a group in order to indicate the direction in which it should move.

   Hyponyms: point man, point woman

   • 1997, Glen Stedham, Bush Basics: A Common Sense Guide to Backwoods Adventure, →ISBN:

     Once he is sure the point person is on the bearing the reference person can move up to the position of the point person and the point person can continue on the bearing.

   • 2007, Martin Volken, Scott Schell, Margaret Wheeler, Backcountry Skiing: Skills for Ski Touring and Ski Mountaineering, →ISBN:

     As soon as your point person begins to deviate, instruct him to correct his direction. The point person needs to adjust only slightly to stay in a straight line.

   • 2017, Walter Glen Martin, Prepper's Survival Navigation, →ISBN:

     If you have two or more people in your party, at least one of whom has some experience and a compass, you can implement a point person to guide you in the absence of recognizable landscape features. The point person acts as the group's reference point, trekking out in front of the designated navigator but remaining close enough to stay visible and communicate verbally, with the use of hand signals, or with a flashlight.

• spokesperson
• contact person

• “point person”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “point person” (US) / “point person” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.
• “point person”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.