Senior Manager, Global Tradeshows & Programs
About The Position
The Senior Manager, Global Tradeshow Strategy & Programs, within Global Marketing, is responsible for leading and coordinating Illumina’s global Tier 1 and Tier 1+ event ecosystem to ensure maximum enterprise impact, consistency, and operational efficiency. This role serves as the central coordination and governance layer across Global Marketing, Field Marketing, and cross-functional stakeholders, acting as the connective “glue” that aligns strategy, messaging, design standards, and execution readiness across regions. The position is accountable for ensuring that global events operate as an integrated portfolio, not isolated activations, by driving alignment across planning, resource allocation, and experience design, while enabling Field Marketing to execute locally with clarity and consistency. Field Marketing owns regional planning and in-market execution, this role will focus on global strategy, alignment and enablement as well as the end-to-end execution for select global events without clear regional ownership, and build scalable toolkits, standards, and playbooks to elevate performance across all events. This role also owns the biannual Illumina-sponsored International Precision Healthcare Summit (IPHS) and leads execution for strategic global events that emerge outside the annual Field Marketing plan, ensuring agility in response to market dynamics.
Requirements
- Typically requires a minimum of 12 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 8 years and a Master’s degree.
- Proven ability to lead and coordinate, multi-region programs.
- Strong program management and cross-functional leadership capabilities.
- Experience operating in a matrixed, global organization.
- Ability to balance strategic oversight with selective execution ownership.
- Experience managing budgets, vendors, and contracts.
- Experience with speaker management and speaker bureau process.
Nice To Haves
- Life sciences or healthcare experience.
- Familiarity with compliance and Transfers of Value (TOV).
- Experience with enterprise event platforms (Cvent, Workfront, etc.).
Responsibilities
- Global Orchestration & Portfolio Integration: Serve as the central leader and coordinator across all Tier 1 and Tier 1+ events, ensuring alignment across strategy, messaging, design, and execution readiness.
- Ensure events are connected as a cohesive global program, not siloed activations.
- Partner with Field Marketing to enable seamless handoff for regional execution, with clear roles, timelines, and expectations.
- Identify and resolve gaps, overlaps, and inefficiencies across regions and functions.
- Align event strategy to commercial priorities, product launches, and portfolio narratives.
- Global Strategy & Governance: Support development of a globally aligned tradeshow and external events strategy, including tiering, prioritization, and investment allocation.
- Establish and govern enterprise-wide standards for design, messaging, experience, and budget guardrails.
- Maintain the global events calendar, ensuring visibility, coordination, and strategic sequencing across regions.
- Drive adoption of a more scalable and structured operating model for Tier 1 events.
- Process Standardization & Enablement: Build and scale global playbooks, toolkits, and frameworks for Tier 1 and Tier 1+ events.
- Define clear RACI models across Global Marketing, Field Marketing, and cross-functional teams.
- Implement repeatable planning frameworks that improve speed, quality, and consistency.
- Drive adoption of enterprise tools (e.g., Cvent, Workfront) to enable transparency and scalability.
- Execution Leadership (Targeted & Intentional): Lead end-to-end execution for Global events without clear regional ownership (e.g., select scientific congresses), The biannual International Precision Healthcare Summit (IPHS), Strategic global events arising outside the annual Field Marketing plan.
- For regionally owned events: Provide guidance, standards, and oversight, not primary execution.
- Ensure adherence to global design, messaging, and experience frameworks.
- Cross-Functional Alignment: Act as the central point of coordination across Marketing, Sales, Medical Affairs, Product, Legal, and Compliance.
- Ensure stakeholders contributing to events are aligned and operating against a unified plan.
- Drive enterprise-level alignment in a complex, matrixed organization.
- Partner closely with Field Marketing tradeshow managers to define roles, handoffs, and ways of working.
- Vendor Strategy & Resource Optimization: Manage global vendor ecosystem (agencies, production, experiential partners).
- Partner with regional teams to ensure alignment and efficiency while preserving effective local vendor relationships.
- Standardize vendor usage and contracts to drive scale and cost leverage globally.
- Measurement & Continuous Improvement: Define and implement standardized KPIs and performance frameworks across all Tier 1 events.
- Partner with Marketing Ops and Field Marketing to measure: Pipeline impact, Engagement quality, ROI and cost efficiency.
- Use insights to drive continuous optimization of the global events portfolio.
Benefits
- Access to genomics sequencing
- Family planning
- Health/dental/vision
- Retirement benefits
- Paid time off
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
