Sr. Manager, Conference Programming

Summary 

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.
• Organi