Senior Event Operations Manager

Microsoft • Redmond, WA

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

At Microsoft Advertising, we are building globally scaled platforms that ensure performance, trust, and business growth by harnessing the full power of AI and our unique audience intelligence. We are committed to helping businesses navigate the next era of advertising where generative AI is unlocking better outcomes between people, brands, publishers, and ad platforms. The Senior Event Operations Manager owns the end-to-end operational integrity of MSA Marketing's event program and is accountable for turning events into a measurable, repeatable driver of leads, pipeline and ROI. This role defines the event capabilities requirements, operational processes, and measurement model that connect event activity to business outcomes. This role works in close partnership with Global & Regional Marketing, Analytics, Finance, Sales, Product & Engineering to transform and mature our Event capabilities. The role exists to close critical gaps, transform our capabilities, and establish unified ways of working across Marketing, Sales & Operations. Success requires the ability to define and own a unified event operating model, aligning stakeholders on a common set of definitions, processes, and platform requirements across the full event lifecycle. It also involves collaborating with partners to design and build an integrated event system and operationalizing an event measurement framework built on event engagement and observable post-event behavior. Leading cross-functional change and adoption is also key.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Finance, Engineering, or related field AND 5+ years of marketing operations, program management, project management, or related experience OR equivalent experience.
• 3+ years technology/process improvement experience.

Nice To Haves

• Master's Degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Finance, Engineering, or related field AND 5+ years of marketing operations, program management, project management, or related experience OR Bachelor's Degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Finance, Engineering, or related field AND 8+ years of marketing operations, program management, project management, or related experience OR equivalent experience.

Responsibilities

• Owns the end-to-end operational integrity of the event program across first-, second-, and third-party events, from tentpole to scale and regional, defining the technical and process requirements and roadmap for the full event lifecycle capabilities.
• Establish a unified event lifecycle operating model, aligning Marketing and Sales on common definitions, processes, and platform requirements spanning planning, execution and data capture, post-event activation and measurement.
• Tentpole events: Accountable for on-the-ground operations as they relate to leads and pipeline, ensuring compliant contact and lead capture, customer meetings, and clean hand-off into sales pipeline activation are executed on site.
• Drives large-scale (e.g., features spanning multiple semesters) planning and provides solutions by seeking to identify key milestones, providing expertise into developing plans, and leading team discussions.
• Estimates and articulates business impacts and anticipates business outcomes associated with planning.
• Oversees planning documents and drives discussions to ensure action and execution, managing ambiguity and complex scenarios.
• Works across teams to provide status updates and drive progress and alignment across peer groups, and resolve conflicting priorities to overcome barriers.
• Discovers insights in data using exploratory techniques and brings insights into action-oriented information for senior (e.g., director, general manager [GM] level) business stakeholders.
• Identifies opportunities for solutions beyond direct responsibilities.
• Tracks deliverables and timeliness.
• Identifies and resolves blockers to ensure implementation.
• Oversees governance to ensure any possible changes/issues are socialized prior to implementation.
• Develops processes across disciplines and enacts changes across teams.
• Develops metrics, targets, and measurement plans at program level by partnering with internal teams (marketing, sales, operations, finance, product, engineering, etc.).
• Contributes to operational reporting and monitoring by tracking metrics, identifying and implementing corrective actions, and communicating issues.
• Communicates metrics across stakeholders to land feature improvements and provide strategic inputs into the business.
• Oversees the development and execution of processes and procedures to enable management of marketing artifacts by providing input and giving feedback to others.
• Drives process improvements through others and oversees efforts to optimize processes.
• Gathers information on moderately complex product scenarios by researching and interviewing people about impacts of potential changes.
• Utilizes understanding of details gathered to align requests with Engineering colleagues and define requirements.
• Communicates inputs to engineers to inform size and scope.
• Develops and communicates business justification, estimating business impact to drive prioritization of resources and alignment with short- and long-term revenue objectives.
• Understands the competitive landscape.
• Ensures compliance of Marketing products/programs, policies, and across projects.
• Collaborates with internal teams (e.g., Engineering, Privacy team, Legal, Procurement) and external suppliers to ensure compliance in design and execution.
• Communicates policies and guidelines to ensure understanding and emphasize business impact.
• Abides by all compliance policies, processes, etc.
• Advises business on how to run marketing programs.
• Initiates compliance programs to ensure marketing continues to adhere to changing requirements (e.g., accessibility compliance).
• Identifies improvements in policies/processes.
• Uses business knowledge and technical expertise to assist with analyzing the work of the Marketing team to identify potential future business opportunities.
• Coaches and provides support to teams to execute technical roadmaps and strategy.
• Participates in industry groups and may share knowledge with the industry through various means (e.g., conferences, white papers, blog posts).
• Defines the standards/policies for usage of marketing technology.
• Develops standard operating procedures (SOP), trainings, and documentation for marketing technology platforms.
• Learns and understands the current state of the industry, including knowledge of tools, techniques, strategies, and processes that can be utilized to improve process efficiency and performance.
• Designs and scales operations of marketing technology platforms for Microsoft needs.

Benefits

• Microsoft Employees who live within a 50-mile commute of a designated Microsoft office in the U.S. or a 25 mile commute of a non-us country specific location are expected to work from the office at least 3 days per week.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior