Experiential Marketing Manager

Second Front Systems is seeking an Experiential Marketing Manager to lead their global events program and create memorable experiences that enhance the brand's visibility. The role involves managing various events, from flagship symposiums to social engagements, ensuring they connect to measurable business outcomes.

Responsibilities:

• Own the strategy, budget, and execution for 2F's flagship annual symposium, from concept through day-of operations and post-event measurement
• Build experiences that last. Design the highlight moments—the unexpected venue, the activation with a line around the block, the standout swag people actually keep, the stunt that earns its way onto someone's LinkedIn without us asking—that leave a lasting impression of 2F in people's minds
• Generate fresh, counterculture, off-the-wall concepts that make 2F the standout in a crowded, conservative market—and have the rigor to pull them off
• Run our happy hours, socials, and executive dinners—the high-touch engagements where deals and partnerships actually move—and reinvent the format so they don't feel like everyone else's
• Manage sporting and action-sports activations and suite hospitality, including racing partnerships and VIP programs
• Lead trade show presence and large-scale booth activations: design direction, vendor management, logistics, staffing, and lead capture—with a creative point of view that refuses the default
• Build customer engagement programs that deepen relationships across our customer and partner base
• Partner with sales and demand gen to connect activations to pipeline and measurable outcomes
• Manage external vendors, venues, agencies, and production partners—pushing them past their comfort zone and holding them to deadlines, budgets, and our quality bar
• Bring an ecosystem-first instinct: lead with customers and partners and their wins, not with us

Requirements:

• 5+ years running experiential, events, or field marketing—ideally including large-scale (250+) flagship events
• A portfolio of moments people still remember—and a sense for how those moments connected back to the business
• Bold, unconventional ideas you actually shipped—not decks of concepts that died in committee. We want to see the stunt, the activation, the giveaway that worked because it was different
• End-to-end ownership: strategy, budget, logistics, vendor management, and measurement
• The taste to know the difference between weird-for-weird's-sake and weird-that-works—and the discipline to land the plane every time
• Comfort operating in a fast-moving environment with tight timelines and high standards
• Willingness to travel and a hospitality instinct that shows up under pressure
• Existing relationships and fluency within the defense tech, govtech, or national security ecosystem