Senior Marketing Manager, Recruiting Events

Shield AI is seeking a Senior Marketing Manager, Recruiting Events to own of cross-functional initiatives that support the employer brand strategy and be responsible for events, sponsorships, conferences and partnerships. You will be well-versed in all aspects of event strategy, planning, and execution and will lead both in-person and virtual events that boost regional recruiting efforts and elevate our brand awareness across key priority regions. This highly collaborative role requires strong partnerships across, Recruitment, Leadership, HR, and Marketing teams to create events and content to support our recruitment priorities.
This role will be pivotal in building experiences that attract and engage the best talent to power Shield AI’s growth. In this role, you will be responsible for translating Shield AI’s Employee Value Proposition into compelling in-person experiences, creating events that spark conversation and drive impact.

What You'll Do:

Recruiting Events and Conference Presence

• Set the annual event calendar against hiring demand by function, division and location
• Build an event calendar inclusive of defense and aerospace trade shows, professional and technical society conferences and academic AI, engineering and robotics conferences.
• Direct the on-site experience: footprint, booth design, hardware and demo coordination, staffing model, and the conversation recruiters and engineers run on the floor.
• Build the post-event framework with Recruiting and Sourcing that moves event conversations into the ATS, into pipeline and into hires

Affiliations, Memberships and Sponsorship Investment

• Manage Shield AI's talent-facing affiliation portfolio across professional societies and industry associations
• Negotiate exhibitor contracts, sponsorship tiers and membership agreements.
• Manage the relationships that execute the calendar: exhibit houses, show management, agencies and logistics partners

Service-Connected Talent Programs

• Direct Shield AI's service-connected event and affiliation footprint across Navy, Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and Space Force audiences, aligned to the roles where transitioning talent converts
• Build and hold relationships with service academy and ROTC career services, the career conferences that serve them, and the veteran and military spouse hiring organizations Shield AI chooses to support.
• Lead the event and affiliation side of military transition and corporate fellowship programs in partnership with Talent Acquisition
• Work with employees who served to bring credible voices to service-connected events

Budget, Hiring Impact and Operations

• Own the annual events, sponsorship and membership budget, including forecast, allocation and reconciliation
• Define the measurement model: cost per qualified conversation, apply starts, completed applications, pipeline, offers and hires by event, and source of hire attribution back to each show
• Build the playbooks, briefing docs and staffing kits that let any recruiter or engineer represent Shield AI well on the floor

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree, equivalent practical experience, or military experience.
• 8 years of experience in event marketing, experiential marketing, trade show management, or recruiting events.
• Experience running an event program end to end, including the calendar, the budget, vendor contracts, and on-site delivery through load-out.
• Experience negotiating exhibitor contracts, sponsorship packages, or membership agreements.
• A demonstrated record of working hard, being a trustworthy teammate, holding yourself and others to high standards, and being kind to others

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in employer brand, recruitment marketing, or talent acquisition.
• Experience in defense or aerospace, including the trade show calendar, association membership structures, and the constraints on what goes on a show floor.
• Experience in live events, touring, festivals, brand activation, or experiential agency production.
• Military service background, or experience running military and veteran hiring programs, transition and fellowship pipelines, or service academy relationships.
• Experience measuring events against pipeline, offers, and hires, or the commercial equivalent carried in a marketing or experiential environment.
• Experience building an event program where none existed, at a company adding headcount quickly across engineering and operations.