Events Lead

We're hiring a Events Lead to own and scale our global events portfolio. You'll lead strategy and execution across hundreds of events annually - from community-led activations and third-party sponsorships to flagship owned experiences like Waves, our annual conference.

This is a leadership role. You'll manage a team of event planners, build strong cross-functional partnerships with GTM and marketing teams, and translate Make's business strategy into event plans that drive measurable outcomes. You'll own the commercials for events - managing budgets, tracking ROI and pipeline contribution, and driving revenue opportunities.

The ideal candidate connects the dots between events and lifecycle marketing strategy. You'll ensure every activation - whether a local meetup or a major brand moment - reinforces our goals for awareness, adoption, expansion, and loyalty. You bring a sharp eye for creative direction and production quality, ensuring Make's events deliver exceptional experiences that reflect our brand standards. You're equally comfortable setting long-term vision and rolling up your sleeves during peak execution periods.

We're investing heavily in events to deepen relationships with our community, customers, and partners worldwide - from local community meetups to Waves, which is growing rapidly. This is your chance to establish events as a core driver of business growth and a signature expression of Make's brand.

What you’ll do:

• Own Make’s global events strategy: decide the mix of events (sponsorships, community, brand, customer, launch) that best serve our evolving business priorities, and adapt it over time.
• Drive commercial outcomes: ensure events contribute to awareness, pipeline, retention, and customer growth, with clear ROI. This includes partnering with the relevant teams to drive sales and sponsorships of flagship events.
• Be a player-coach: lead, mentor, and inspire a globally distributed team of ~3 (plus agencies/freelancers), while stepping in directly to run critical workstreams during peak periods.
• Lead vendor and partner relationships: own negotiations and commercial agreements with agencies, venues, and production partners, ensuring quality and efficiency.
• Integrate events into the broader GTM engine: collaborate with brand, product marketing, PR, community, and sales to ensure events drive maximum value and extend into digital, social, and earned channels.
• Deliver excellence in execution: from on-the-ground logistics to the strategic arc of flagship experiences, ensure that every event strengthens the Make brand and leaves a lasting impression.
• Spot and solve problems across the event lifecycle: apply deep expertise in anticipating and resolving challenges from planning through execution, while building scalable programs that can run smoothly without your daily involvement.
• Partner closely with content, comms, and executives: design events that tell Make’s story, showcase our leadership, and align with our brand narrative.
• Measure and optimize: set KPIs, partner with analytics on reporting, and evolve the strategy based on impact.

What we’re looking for:

• A proven track record leading global events strategy and execution, ideally in tech/B2B/SaaS environment and across a variety of event types.
• Proven success designing commercially impactful event programs that balance awareness with measurable business outcomes.
• Strong leadership skills: experience managing small teams, agencies, and freelancers, and coaching them to connect execution to business objectives.
• A player-coach mindset: comfortable owning big-picture strategy while rolling up your sleeves at critical moments.
• Skilled negotiator with experience managing budgets, sponsorships, and vendor contracts at scale.
• Demonstrated ability to spot issues early, resolve complex challenges under pressure, and ensure seamless delivery of high-stakes events.
• Experience designing scalable, repeatable event