Event Marketing Associate

Responsibilities

• Plan and run logistics for Abaka AI's presence at leading AI and research conferences (e.g. NeurIPS, ICLR, CVPR, COLM, SIGGRAPH), including booth setup, international shipping, travel, and run-of-show.
• Organize hosted events such as customer dinners, happy hours, and community meetups, from venue sourcing to guest list to day-of execution.
• Manage vendors, including venues, booth builders, caterers, swag suppliers, and printers. Collect quotes, negotiate, and handle contracts and invoices.
• Build and maintain event timelines and budgets, and keep stakeholders updated on deadlines and spend.
• Work with business development and marketing to drive attendance through invite lists, registration pages on platforms like Luma, email invites, and social promotion.
• Work on-site at events: set up and tear down, staff the booth, check in guests, and solve problems as they come up.
• Capture and upload leads to the CRM (HubSpot or Salesforce) after each event, and report on attendance, pipeline, and ROI.
• Manage inventory of booth materials, signage, and branded merchandise, and work with our designer on new event assets.
• Research the AI events landscape and recommend which conferences and community events we should attend, sponsor, or host.

Requirements

• 1–3 years of experience in event coordination, field marketing, hospitality, or a related role (relevant internships count). Experience at a B2B, SaaS, or AI company is a plus.
• Experience with booth logistics at large academic, research, or tech conferences.
• Strong organization and project management skills, with a track record of managing many moving pieces at once.
• Clear, friendly written and verbal communication with both internal teams and external vendors.
• Comfortable with budgets, spreadsheets, and basic reporting. Familiarity with event platforms and CRMs is a plus.
• Basic design skills in Canva or Figma for quick event assets.
• A proactive, low-ego, "I'll handle it" attitude. Nothing is beneath you on event day.
• Ability to travel about 25–40%, including international travel to major conferences, and to work occasional evenings or weekends around events.
• Ability to build AI workflows and integrate tools such as Claude Cowork, Codex, and AI agents into your daily work.
• Curiosity about the AI research community and a desire to make a positive impact on the industry.

Preferred

• Design skills aren't required, but a keen eye for aesthetics is a plus.

Benefits

• comprehensive benefits package (health, dental, vision, PTO, flexible work schedule)