Program Manager, Events and Activations

Dutch Bros Coffee•Tempe, AZ

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Program Manager, Events & Activations is the operational engine behind Dutch Bros' employee experience events and field marketing activations. This role owns the program management backbone for A Better World (ABW) — the company's flagship multi-day leadership event — partnering with the Internal Brand team and key workstream owners to build the master timeline, track progress, surface risk early, and keep hundreds of moving parts aligned to milestones. Beyond ABW, this person builds and runs the operating rhythm for field-facing culture events and marketing activations, ensuring intake, scheduling, vendor coordination, and on-site execution stays clear and on track. Success requires rigorous critical-path planning, comfort with live event execution under pressure, and the judgment to flex process to the size and stakes of each event. This person carries strong executive presence, comfortable presenting status, risk, and tradeoffs directly to senior leaders and representing the Employee Experience function in cross-functional forums. This is a high-impact role for someone who thrives in ambiguity, builds structure where none exists, and is energized by making great events land on time and on budget.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in a relevant field or equivalent experience
6+ years of experience in program or project management, preferably spanning creative production, brand marketing, event production, or agency environments
Demonstrated experience program-managing a large-scale, multi-day live event or comparable high-visibility initiative—building workback schedules, tracking cross-functional workstreams, and managing risk through execution
Experience managing creative workflows and production pipelines (design, video, campaign development) with competing intake and shifting priorities
Fluency in more than one project management methodology and the judgment to flex between them; able to right-size process to the work rather than impose a single system
Strong executive presence, including experience presenting to and building materials for senior leaders, and comfort representing a department in cross-functional settings
Proven ability to lead cross-functional initiatives across multiple stakeholders, departments, and competing priorities
High level of maturity, discretion, and professional judgment
Advanced proficiency in project and portfolio management tools (Asana, Monday, Smartsheet, Wrike, or equivalent) and MS Office, especially Excel and PowerPoint as well as AI automation.

Nice To Haves

Dutch Bros field experience, preferably leadership experience of Shop Manager or above
Experience working closely with senior executives or leadership teams
Project management certification (PMP, CAPM, PMI-ACP, CSM, or equivalent)
Background in event production, field marketing events or a live production environment
Working familiarity with event production operations—AV, venue coordination, vendor contracts, and speaker logistics—sufficient to plan, sequence, and pressure-test timelines accurately
Experience tracking program-level budgets and coordinating vendor deliverables
Experience supporting a team through rapid growth or scaling
Familiarity with resource and capacity planning models for creative teams

Responsibilities

Serve as the program management partner to the Employee Experience lead who owns ABW, providing the planning structure, tracking, and cross-functional coordination that keeps the event on schedule.
Build and maintain the master workback schedule, critical path, and dependency map across creative, content, production, venue, AV, talent, travel, and merchandise workstreams.
Run the operating cadence for ABW—planning meetings, status reviews, decision logs, and risk registers—keeping every workstream owner accountable to agreed milestones.
Surface risks, dependencies, and bottlenecks early and escalate them with recommended solutions so the event owner can make fast, informed decisions.
Coordinate Creative Studio and partner-team contributions into ABW, ensuring briefs, deadlines, review checkpoints, and deliverables are clear on both sides.
Track ABW spend against forecast in partnership with the event owner, maintaining visibility into commitments, invoices, and budget health.
Facilitate post-event analysis—capturing attendee feedback, cost performance, and process learnings—and translate findings into an improved plan for the following year.
Codify ABW planning into a repeatable program management playbook that can scale to regional and new-market culture events.
Serve as the central program management function for events and activations across the Field Marketing and Employee Experience teams, maintaining a single view of all active activations, owners, timelines, and risks.
Build and manage a unified intake and prioritization process so incoming requests are scoped, sequenced, and staffed against real capacity. Identify tiering structure for events to enable more turnkey, less bespoke, execution
Apply the right level of project management rigor to each initiative—structured critical-path planning where deadlines are fixed and stakes are high, lighter iterative cadences where creative work needs room to develop.
Maintain a portfolio dashboard that gives the Sr. Director and leadership real-time visibility into project status, capacity, risk, and blockers.
Identify dependencies and conflicts between the two teams early and drive resolution before they impact delivery.
Establish and continuously improve the standards, templates, and rhythms that allow both teams to operate consistently as they scale.
Act as a strategic thought partner to the team leader, helping prioritize workstreams and align execution to department and company goals.
Prepare executive-ready updates, dashboards, decks, and briefing materials that clearly communicate progress, risk, and decisions needed.
Represent the department in cross-functional meetings and partner forums, speaking to status and tradeoffs with authority on the team leader’s behalf.
Anticipate roadblocks and dependencies, flag them early, and bring recommended solutions rather than open problems.
Shape high-impact leadership meetings by coordinating agendas, pre-work, and post-meeting follow-through.
Manage the annual operating calendar, including budget planning cycles, key deliverables, and milestone tracking across both teams.
Monitor department budgets and ensure spend aligns with strategic priorities.
Conduct research, benchmarking, and analysis to inform decisions on process, tooling, staffing models, and program design.
Evaluate and refine internal systems and workflows to reduce friction and increase the team's focus on high-value work.
Serve as a point of connection between the department and partner marketing teams, streamlining shared processes and handoffs.
Keep a pulse on employee feedback loops and make recommendations to optimize or modify event logistics and content, as necessary