Event Operations Specialist

Event Operations Specialist

Location: San Francisco, CA
Work Type: Hybrid OR Remote
Contract Duration: 5 months, with potential to extend
Pay Rate: $100–$125/hour W2
Travel: U.S. travel required as needed for events
Interview Process: 4 rounds

Russell Tobin is hiring an experienced Event Operations Specialist to support a high-growth technology client’s Brand Marketing events team. This role will support the day-to-day execution of tier 1 brand event programs, including conferences, brand activations, executive events, policy events, and cross-event operational programs.

The ideal candidate is highly organized, detail-oriented, and comfortable owning both strategic and hands-on event operations. This person will manage end-to-end operational workflows, support large-scale events, build scalable processes, and help create documentation and playbooks that improve consistency across a growing event portfolio.

Responsibilities

Registration & Attendee Communications

• Own the registration process end-to-end, including strategy development, registration page creation, attendee communications, reporting, and escalations.
• Build and configure registration environments using platforms such as Swoogo and Cvent for conferences, event series, and third-party sponsorship activations.
• Develop and maintain registration reporting and analytics dashboards.
• Manage attendee approval workflows, VIP registration processes, waitlists, and attendee inquiries.
• Execute transactional and customer service communications, including confirmations, reminders, updates, and event-related attendee messaging.
• Handle inbound attendee requests and escalations through event support inboxes.
• Coordinate onsite registration logistics and provide onsite support as needed.

Stakeholder & Communications Management

• Lead communications management and coordination across internal and external event stakeholders.
• Partner cross-functionally with marketing, executives, partners, vendors, and event teams to ensure operational alignment.
• Communicate clearly and professionally with attendees at all levels, including executive and high-touch audiences.

Speaker Training Program

• Manage the speaker training program, including scheduling training sessions and coordinating with employee speakers.
• Partner with external speaker training agencies and manage related vendor relationships.
• Oversee booking logistics, calendar coordination, and program communications.
• Identify and recommend improvements to improve the speaker training experience and operational efficiency.

Onsite Meeting Coordination

• Coordinate onsite meeting requests between attendees, executives, partners, and internal stakeholders.
• Manage meeting booking logistics and calendar coordination across multi-day events.
• Recommend tools and process improvements to streamline scheduling workflows.

Swag & Merchandise Operations

• Own swag and merchandise operations, including planning, inventory management, forecasting, ordering, and fulfillment.
• Coordinate shipping logistics for domestic and international events.
• Track merchandise budgets and manage vendor relationships.
• Ensure on-time delivery and quality control for event-branded materials.

Process Documentation & Playbook Development

• Create and maintain playbooks, templates, SOPs, and process documentation for repeatable event workflows.
• Document best practices to support consistency and scalability across the broader event portfolio.
• Identify automation opportunities and recommend operational improvements.
• Build training materials for cross-functional teams that work with event operations.

Required Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in B2B event marketing, event operations, or marketing operations.
• Hands-on experience with event registration platforms, specifically Swoogo and/or Cvent.
• Working knowledge of Salesforce and HubSpot for campaign tracking and reporting.
• Experience with procurement, legal, or vendor management tools such as Zip, Ironclad, or similar platforms.
• Proven experience supporting large-scale events, including events with 500+ attendees and multi-thousand attendee conferences.
• Experience managing multiple concurrent programs with competing deadlines.
• Strong vendor coordination, logistics management, and operational execution skills.
• Background in swag, merchandise, inventory, shipping, or fulfillment operations.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong attention to detail and quality control.
• Ability to work independently, learn quickly, and solve problems in a fast-paced environment.
• Experience creating documentation, playbooks, SOPs, or scalable operational processes.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in SaaS, technology, or fast-growing startup environments.
• Experience supporting SaaS conferences, field marketing events, brand activations, executive events, or policy events.
• Experience coordinating international event logistics, including shipping, vendor coordination, and multi-time-zone scheduling.
• Experience improving existing event operations programs, tools, workflows, or processes.
• Prior experience at a high-growth company or scaling organization.

Scope

• Support 10+ tier 1 events annually.
• Events range from approximately 200 attendees to several thousand attendees.
• Event types include brand events, activations, policy events, executive events, conferences, and cross-event programs.
• Primary focus is operational execution, process documentation, and scalable event operations support.