Head of Events Marketing

Hi, I’m Harriet, Ashby’s VP of Marketing. We’re looking for a  Head of Events Marketing who knows how to run a beautifully executed event that ties directly to revenue and who loves to create unique experiences that bring groups of people together.

For this role, I am looking for that rare individual who is able to flex into both their left and right brain and has enough experience that they can see around corners and have a strong foundational blueprint for what a great event looks like. 

At Ashby, we are fortunate to have achieved incredible product-market fit with a customer referral flywheel in motion. However, we are usually replacing 3 - 4 tools (awesome), so we have to nail our timing and nurture strategy. We are also (for now) a challenger brand to more established legacy players. Therefore, it is crucial that we work closely with the marketing and sales teams to ensure a tight sales loop.

Joining us means getting to work with smart people on hard problems – and having a lot of fun along the way. More on how we work here and why our investors are excited about us here.

What you’ll be responsible for in this role

Over the next 12 months, you will be responsible for leading the Events strategy and execution for Ashby. This is currently scoped to include the following (you will have the opportunity to shape this):

1. Community and conference event design and execution

   • With input from the community and sales team, you will design and execute monthly community events, including breakfast workshops, dinners, and cocktail events.

   • You will build a system around these events to enable the sales team to scale the event series' playbook and ensure that we are delivering a great (and ROI-positive) experience.

2. Webinar program execution:

   • Partnering with the community, partnership, and demand generation teams, you will uplevel our existing webinar playbooks and lead the setup, tracking, tooling, and engagement strategies around them.

3. User conference strategy and execution:

   • Leading the strategic development and execution of our upcoming user conference. This will include defining success, selecting the venue, locking in and leading contractors, partnering with the team to define our content strategy, and then the logistics in the lead-up to and during the event. 

   • Oversee all aspects from concept to execution, ensuring a memorable and impactful event.

You will probably love this role if

• You are ambitious and always looking to improve your skills. You will be working alongside (and I know we are biased) a lean but highly competent team where everyone supports each other to be excellent at what they do. You will thrive if you are excited about learning and contributing to this culture.

• You’ve tackled projects with a lot of ambiguity and know how to create structure and drive progress. While we have a very strong foundation for the team now, there is still a lot on the events front that we are doing for the first time, so you will need to be confident translating business goals into tangible strategies and then executing against those.

• You seek to create leverage in your work. We are a lean team with expanding goals, so it will be critical that you are able to both operate in the weeds and elevate yourself out of them through thoughtful tooling, playbooks, and efficient, repeatable processes. Some aspects of events will always be manual and time-consuming, but reducing as many of those as possible will be critical to long-term success in the role.

• You have strong business acumen and are confident negotiating and managing contracts. In this role, you will source, evaluate, and negotiate contracts and evaluate conferences in partnership with our in-house experts. Being able to quickly and confidently build a map of the Talent Acquisition landscape and our buyers' needs will be essential to this role. 

This role is not for you if

• You aren’t able to travel. While we will ensure that the team shares the responsibility of attending some events, you will need to be comfortable being on a plane at least monthly cadence in this role. This will be particularly true in the first couple of months as you refine the playbooks and upskill the team.

• You only want to do exciting work. This role will encompass everything from defining our events strategy to booking restaurants and making sure name badges are printed. To be successful in this role, you need to be low ego and happy to jump in at every level.

• You don’t already have a great mental model for how to run successful events. While we want to create opportunities for smart, ambitious marketers early in their careers, in this role, you will need experience running world-class events and be able to hit the ground running with minimal guidance. We’re looking for someone who is opinionated about what a great community dinner looks like and how we should run a several hundred-person user conference.

• You don’t feel comfortable working in spreadsheets. In this role, you will be directly responsible for a qualified demo and pipeline acceleration target. You will need to be confident setting up and managing spreadsheets, pulling Hubspot reports, and working towards running ROI-positive events. 

Interview Plan

At Ashby, our team and interview process want to help you show your best self. We’ll dive into past projects and simulate working together via project working sessions. Our interview process is three rounds: 

1. 30-minute intro call with Anna Hall (Lead GTM Recruiter)

2. 45-minute interview with Harriet Johnston (Hiring Manager)

3. An events simulation (take home or in person)

4. A virtual on-site of 2 hours and 15 minutes with either Shannon Ogborn or Willem Wijnans, and with Euphonia Xu.

Benefits

• Competitive salary and equity.

• Opportunity to work with a talented and passionate team.

• 10-year exercise window for stock options. You shouldn’t feel pressure to purchase stock options if you leave Ashby —do it when you feel financially comfortable.

• Unlimited PTO with four weeks recommended per year. Expect “Vacation?” in our one-on-one agenda until you start taking it 😅.

• Twelve weeks of fully paid family leave in the US. We plan to expand this to employees in other countries as situations arise.

• Generous equipment, software, and office furniture budget. Get what you need to be happy and productive!

• $100/month education budget with more expensive items (like conferences) covered with manager approval.

• If you’re in the US, top-notch health insurance for you and your dependents with all premiums covered by us.

Ashby’s success hinges on hiring great people and creating an environment where we can be happy, feel challenged, and do our best work. We’re being deliberate about building that environment from the ground up. I hope that excites you enough to apply.

Ashby provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetics, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. We are committed to a diverse and inclusive workforce and welcome people from all backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, and abilities.