Senior Event Marketing Manager

The opportunity

Awardco is looking for a Senior Event Marketing Manager to lead the planning and execution of a broad event portfolio, with particular emphasis on the RCGNZ Summit and major tradeshows.

This is a hands-on role for an experienced event marketer who can move easily between strategy and execution: defining event goals, shaping attendee experiences, managing budgets and vendors, coordinating cross-functional teams, leading onsite delivery, and measuring business impact.

You will partner with Marketing, Sales, Client Success, the Center of Excellence, Product, Content, Creative, Finance, and executive stakeholders. You will lead projects and external partners without formal people-management responsibility.

What you’ll do

Lead event strategy and planning

• Translate business priorities into event objectives, audience strategies, experience concepts, success metrics, and execution plans.
• Own assigned events from initial brief and venue or sponsorship evaluation through onsite execution, follow-up, and post-event reporting.
• Build clear project plans, timelines, ownership models, budgets, risk plans, and run-of-show documents.
• Partner with the Senior Director of Experiential Marketing to prioritize the event calendar and make informed tradeoffs.

Execute RCGNZ and major tradeshows

• Serve as a senior event lead for RCGNZ and priority tradeshows, coordinating programming, sponsors, expo presence, attendee experience, production, logistics, and onsite operations.
• Deliver a seamless attendee journey from invitation and registration through arrival, programming, networking, and post-event follow-up.
• Support high-touch experiences for clients, VIPs, executives, speakers, and strategic accounts.
• Anticipate risks, create contingency plans, and resolve issues calmly and quickly onsite.

Connect events to business outcomes

• Partner with Sales, Client Success, Demand Generation, and Marketing Operations on target audiences, account priorities, attendance goals, and follow-up.
• Build event programs that support qualified engagement, relationship development, pipeline creation, client expansion, and brand visibility.
• Ensure clean campaign tracking, lead capture, attendee handoffs, and opportunity attribution.
• Measure registration, attendance, audience mix, target-account engagement, meetings, demos, pipeline, influenced revenue, feedback, and cost efficiency.
• Turn event insights into recommendations for future programming and investment.

Manage partners and the attendee experience

• Manage sponsors, venues, production partners, caterers, printers, photographers, technology providers, and other vendors.
• Own scopes of work, deliverables, deadlines, contracts, invoices, budgets, and partner communications.
• Partner with web, platform, design, content, and marketing operations teams on registration, event websites, attendee communications, event apps, email journeys, signage, and other touchpoints.
• Ensure event information is accurate, current, accessible, and easy for attendees and internal teams to use.

Lead onsite execution and improve the operating model

• Coordinate staff, volunteers, vendors, speakers, sponsors, and internal stakeholders during setup, live programming, and teardown.
• Oversee onsite logistics, attendee flow, hospitality, sponsor and expo readiness, vendor timing, and issue resolution.
• Capture attendee insights, buying signals, feedback, and operational learnings for follow-up and reporting.
• Create and improve templates, checklists, master sheets, event hubs, and post-event review practices that make the team faster and more consistent.
• Share knowledge with junior event marketers and coordinators through documentation, coaching, and project leadership.

What success looks like

• Priority events are delivered on time, on budget, and at a high quality bar.
• RCGNZ and major tradeshows have clear strategy, ownership, timelines, and escalation paths.
• Attendees, sponsors, speakers, executives, and internal teams feel prepared and supported.
• Sales and Client Success are activated early and equipped for effective follow-up.
• Event data is accurate and useful for decisions about pipeline, revenue, engagement, and future investment.
• Vendors and partners deliver reliably, and the team gains repeatable systems that reduce friction over time.

What you bring

• 5+ years of experience planning and executing B2B, corporate, experiential, conference, tradeshow, or field marketing events.
• Demonstrated ownership of complex events or portfolios from strategy through onsite execution and measurement.
• Experience managing vendors, venues, sponsors, production partners, budgets, contracts, and concurrent timelines.
• Strong understanding of attendee experience, event communications, registration workflows, onsite operations, and event technology.
• Ability to connect event activity to audience strategy, sales alignment, pipeline, revenue, and brand outcomes.
• Excellent project management, communication, prioritization, and follow-through skills.
• Calm, proactive problem-solving style and willingness to own the details.
• Ability to influence cross-functional partners and lead projects without formal authority.
• Willingness to travel regularly and work extended hours during event setup and event days.

Helpful experience

• Large-scale summits or multi-day conferences.
• Strategic sponsorships, expo programs, and partner activations.
• Hosted executive, VIP, client, or practitioner experiences.
• Bizzabo or similar event platforms, CRM and marketing automation systems, and event performance reporting.
• Experience in a high-growth B2B SaaS or technology company.

Why this role matters

Events are a critical opportunity for Awardco to create connection, build trust, demonstrate our point of view, and move business forward. In this role, you will help ensure every event is purposeful, memorable, operationally strong, and measurable in its impact.