Sr. Manager, Conference Programming

S u mma ry

The Sr. Manager, Conference Programming role is responsible for the development and execution of program content for in-person and virtual conferences that meet the needs of the Internal Auditing profession at various competency levels and across various industries. This role leads the creation of project plans, speaker recruitment and facilitation of program planning committees while driving conference program content creation to support successful conference delivery. The role uses innovation to evolve program content to always address emerging topics, engagement, and market segments. This role manages a project process and may have a direct report(s).

Essential Duties And Responsibilities

• Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to develop, implement and maintain leading edge conference programs that meet or exceed budgeted and forecasted revenue goals.
• Develop conference program content for in-person and virtual conferences that meet the needs of internal auditing professionals at various competency levels representing a variety of industries.
• Identify innovative content and program development opportunities, and partner with internal teams to drive implementation of innovative ideas.
• Lead conference planning committee meetings including volunteer management, documentation, and driving effective collaboration.
• Facilitate the speaker submission process including reviewing submissions, recruiting new submissions, reporting and communicating to internal teams, and sending follow up communication to those who submit proposals.
• Negotiate speaker fees and criteria while partnering with Legal and Operations teams to facilitate contract execution.
• Create project plans in SmartSheet, including defining timelines and deliverables for each event specific to the conference content program development
• Project manage the conference program development processes, including leading cross-functional meetings, ensuring all teams update action items, report on conference progress.
• Develop the business case and appropriate executive summaries including the target audience, key value proposition, learning objectives, and other information needed to support marketing and sales efforts.
• Own the conference program content development process for several conferences, and partner with peers to support other conference program development.
• Manage SME review process to review PowerPoints submitted by conference speakers for content, format and alignment with learning objectives.
• Partner with conference event operations, marketing, IT and other internal teams to support conference programming for a successful delivery
• Monitor and evaluate conference program feedback through evaluations, discussions with conference planning committee and other attendee feedback to implement continuous process improvements
• Collaborate with Marketing team to review all marketing collateral related to conferences to ensure accuracy
• Travels approximately 10-20% to conferences to ensure successful program delivery and site evaluations as needed.
• Other duties as assigned.
  
  

Supervisory Responsibilities

The role may supervise one or more conference program team members.

Qualifications

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Conference programming experience, including developing program schedules and agendas, recruiting and working with speakers, identifying relevant topics, and writing session descriptions.
• Program/project coordination/management skills.
• Exceptional verbal and written communications skills.
• Strong collaboration skills.
• Demonstrated experience prioritizing and balancing multiple, ongoing high-profile projects with ability to meet critical deadlines.
• Ability to apply global perspectives to projects.
• Organized, able to act independently, and have an eye for detail with the ability to put ideas into tangible form.
  
  

Education and/or Skills:

• Bachelor’s degree in education, business, event management, or similar course of study.
• 7 or more years of experience in conference programming and/or project management.
• 3 or more years of experience managing direct reports.
  
  

Skills

Technical Skills

• Mastery of MS Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.
• SmartSheet experience preferred.
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator experience preferred.
  
  

Certificates, Licenses, Registrations

Project management or conference-related certificates are a plus.

Language Skills

Ability to respond to common inquiries or complaints from members, customers, volunteers, and individuals in the broader business community. Ability to consolidate data from a wide variety of sources, interpret its meaning, and present such information in a meaningful way to top management and/or volunteers.

Reasoning Ability

Ability to solve practical problems and deal with a variety of concrete variables in situations where only limited standardization exists. Ability to interpret a variety of instructions furnished in written, oral, diagram, or schedule form.

Computer Skills

Expert ability to work in a computerized environment with knowledge of Microsoft Office products. Web-related computer skills listed above.

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is frequently required to stand; walk and sit. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision and color vision.

Work Environment

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

We are an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy, age, national origin, disability status, genetic information, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

This position will require work in our Headquarters office in Lake Mary, FL 40% of the time.