Manager, Events and Experiences

Venture for Canada

2d•Remote

About The Position

Venture for Canada is a national registered charity dedicated to equipping talent across Canada with the entrepreneurial skills, mindset, and opportunities to succeed in a 21st-century economy. This role leads the strategy, planning, and execution of high-quality events and convenings that bring together participants, partners, funders, alumni, staff, and community members across Venture for Canada's national programs. These convenings range from large-scale conferences and summits to smaller roundtables, community meetups, and internal retreats. The Events and Experiences Manager will oversee the full event lifecycle, from early strategy and project planning through to venue sourcing, vendor negotiation, guest experience, onsite execution, budget management, and post-event closeout. This person will work closely with cross-functional teams to ensure each convening is well-planned, inclusive, mission-aligned, and professionally executed. The ideal candidate is an experienced events leader, people manager, and cross-functional project manager who can think strategically about how convenings support community-building, outreach, partnerships, recruitment, learning, and stakeholder engagement. They are highly organized, independent, and able to build the systems, documentation, and team alignment needed to make complex events repeatable, high-quality, and impactful.

Requirements

5+ years of experience project managing complex events and convenings, including large-scale conferences, revenue generating events, summits, roundtables, meetups, retreats, or community gatherings.
5+ years of experience managing people.
Experience leading events from early strategy and design through planning, execution, closeout, and post-event learning.
Experience managing cross-functional projects with multiple internal teams.
Strong project management skills, including the ability to create workback plans, project trackers, run-of-show documents, risk logs, decision logs, and other planning tools that keep complex work organized.
Strong budget management experience, including estimating event costs, tracking expenses, managing budget risks, and identifying cost-saving opportunities.
Experience sourcing venues and negotiating with vendors.
Experience supporting or leading community-building initiatives, convenings, or stakeholder engagement experiences.
Professional proficiency in written and spoken English is required.
Candidates must be legally authorized to work in Canada at the time of application; we are unable to provide employment sponsorship or support work permit applications for this position.

Nice To Haves

Proficiency in both English and French is considered a strong asset for this role.

Responsibilities

Lead the design of high-quality, inclusive, and mission-aligned convenings, including conferences, summits, roundtables, community meetups, program events, and employee retreats.
Design thoughtful guest experience journeys, from registration and pre-event communications through onsite participation, accessibility, engagement, follow-up, and offboarding.
Apply a strategic lens to how Venture for Canada convenes people, ensuring events are not only well-run, but meaningful, useful, and aligned with organizational goals.
Own the full planning lifecycle for events and convenings, from early design and project planning through execution, closeout, and post-event learning.
Lead cross-functional project teams that may include Program, Learning, Development, Admissions, Marketing, Operations, Partnerships, IT, and external vendors.
Build and maintain clear project management infrastructure, including workback plans, project trackers, timelines, decision logs, risk registers, run-of-show documents, and closeout tools.
Oversee major event planning elements, including venue sourcing, vendor coordination, contract negotiation, risk management, accessibility planning, onsite execution, and post-event wrap-up.
Manage event budgets across convenings of varying size and complexity, including estimating costs, tracking expenses, monitoring risks, and identifying cost-saving opportunities.
Collaborate with internal teams to ensure events support Venture for Canada's broader community, recruitment, funder, alumni, participant, and partnership goals.
Support community development strategies by designing and delivering convenings that build connection, trust, and engagement across Venture for Canada's networks.
Help strengthen Venture for Canada's approach to national convening, including new formats, expansion opportunities, accessibility best practices, and scalable planning models.
Manage, coach, and support direct reports, including team members focused on logistics.
Create a team environment where people feel clear, supported, accountable, and able to do strong work.