8 days ago
Senior Director, Strategic Event Management & Experiential Design
Northwestern Mutual
Milwaukee, WI (Remote)Full time$144K/yr – $248K/yr
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Senior Director, Strategic Event Management & Experiential Design
Milwaukee, WI (Remote)
$144K/yr – $248K/yrSenior Level10+ years expFull time
Posted 8 days ago
Job Summary
Owns multi-year meetings and events strategy and leads a high-performing team to deliver scalable, data-driven experiential programs aligned to enterprise goals.
- Define and execute the meetings and events vision with measurable KPIs.
- Drive analytics, budget control, and vendor management for large-scale programs.
- Lead cross-functional teams to scale experiences and continuously improve outcomes.
Job Description
Responsibilities
- Sets an adoptable multi-year vision for the meetings and events teams that clearly ties back to the enterprise strategy, translating strategic priorities into executable annual plans.
- Ensures data-driven decision-making with robust analytics, observability, and measurable KPIs to optimize engagement and event performance.
- Leads and develops a high-performing event and creative services team to utilize scalable and repeatable processes that hold up under pressure and are ready for growth.
- Fosters experimentation and persona-based experiential event marketing strategies. Is a continuous learner that models a growth mindset and ensures the team is setup to work collaboratively with cross-functional teams.
- Provides dedicated time and space for team development and growth.
- Tracks and documents operational and other related costs by recording and classifying expenses to monitor and control costs, assess budget adherence, and evaluate the efficiency of resource utilization within the organization.
- Builds and maintains a consistent event brand identity for internal and external events, ensuring NM brand and CEE design principles and best practices are applied across all programs.
- Leads the team in delivering large, city-wide events including NM’s Annual Meeting in Milwaukee, two regional meetings that change locations throughout the US. In addition to hundreds of internal and external events on a yearly basis.
- Responsible for overseeing and/or executing with the partnership of sourcing and procurement (S&P) all M&E vendor contracts including post-contract housing management.
- Acts as a SME for the S&P team for industry-related standards, risk assessments, contractual terms, SOWs, pricing, and concessions, as well as ongoing management of hotel and vendor contracts once fully executed.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in related fields such as business, event management, marketing; master's degree – a plus.
- 10+ years of related business and managerial experience, with a strong track record in corporate events strategy, experiential marketing, or event production within a large, matrixed organization.
- Experience working at a luxury hotel property or event venue is a plus.
- Demonstrated experience leading through subordinate managers/professionals a plus.
- Building high-performing teams, experienced in organizational design.
- Proven track record in developing vision and strategy that align with and advance corporate strategic objectives.
- Comprehensive understanding of event strategy, experiential marketing, brand-building, and event technology platforms; applies broad industry knowledge and commercial awareness to drive financial performance.
- Demonstrated ability to direct the resolution of highly complex or unusual business problems that cross functional lines, applying advanced critical thinking.
- Strong political savvy and ability to negotiate with senior leaders across the business.
- Proven skills in dealing with ambiguity and paradox; ability to iterate while overseeing multiple, high-visibility priorities.
Preferred
- Master's degree – a plus.
- Experience leading through subordinate managers/professionals a plus.
- Building high-performing teams, experienced in organizational design.
- Proven skills in dealing with ambiguity and paradox; ability to iterate while overseeing multiple, high-visibility priorities.
- Ability to lead change effectively both within the team and across the organization.
Northwestern Mutual
3.8 Glassdoor
At Northwestern Mutual, our financial advisors are ready to meet you where you are and stay with you long-term. Get financial clarity with a people-first plan designed to uncover new opportunities and potential blind spots. The right time to plan is right now.With $265.0 billion in assets under management, $28.1 billion in revenues, and over $1.8 trillion in life insurance protection in force, we've served more than 4.5 million people through our life, disability income, and long-term care insurance, annuities, brokerage, advisory services, trust services, and discretionary portfolio management solutions. Our wealth management company and investment services manage over $125 billion in client assets.We're proud to support our growing field force of financial advisors across the country, as well as our corporate office employees in Milwaukee and New York. As we continue to grow, we believe diversity makes us stronger in shaping the future of financial security.Explore career opportunities with us: https://jobs.northwesternmutual.com/. Financial representatives and interns are independent contractors, not Northwestern Mutual employees. https://www.northwesternmutual.com/social-media-guidelines
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
37K employees (1,074 in marketing)
69% recommend to a friend
87% CEO approval
Salaries
Posted range
$144K/yr – $248K/yr
Taken straight from the job posting.
Marketing Team
Marketing Team Size
836 (2% of company)
Median Career Experience
14 years
Median Tenure
7.7 years
Marketing Roles Posted (Last 30 Days)
1
People
HR / Recruitment
Marketing Leadership
Sam Strautmann
Chief Marketing Officer
At the company for 3 years 9 months
Katy Dugal Simpson
Chief Marketing Officer - The Callaway Black Group
At the company for 18 years 5 months
Noah Zamudio
Chief Marketing Officer and Lead Advisor for the O'Brien Financial Group
At the company for 7 years 8 months
Angie Leonetti
Chief Marketing Officer - Greater Tampa Bay
At the company for 11 years 7 months
Traffic Signals
Monthly Visitors
1.9M
Monthly Google Ads Budget
$3.5M
Traffic Source Mix
Search
26.6%
Direct
65.3%
Referral
6.6%
Social
0.4%
Paid
1%
Headcount Trend
Current headcount: ~37.2K