B2B Event Planner - Contractor
Car shopping is complicated. At CarGurus, we use data and technology to make it simple, giving people the tools they need to confidently find, buy, finance, or sell a car. The best part? Our work makes a real impact. We’re the most-visited car-shopping site in the US and we are growing fast in our international markets. Ready to come along for the ride?
CarGurus is looking for an B2B Event Planner to join our B2B Global Marketing Team. As the B2B Event Planner, you will support execution of our event strategy that drives awareness, demand, and thought leadership. You’ll manage logistics for a variety of owned events, small and large, to industry tradeshows and sponsorships. To be successful, you’ll need to have top-notch project management skills and the ability to make progress on both the planning and execution of multiple projects at one time. You’ll also need to be adept at working with cross-functional teams to a shared outcome. We partner with a variety of stakeholders from across the organization, so you will need excellent communication skills.
The Role
- Support logistics execution of CarGurus owned events, including our annual automotive conference, local Customer Advisory Boards, and dealer summits (virtual or in-person).
- Manage several vendor relationships and negotiate all related contracts and services.
- Monitor tasks and project assignments, ensuring project schedule is being met and schedule changes are addressed and communicated.
- Communicate cross-functionally to ensure on-time delivery of materials for event sponsorships and event logistics.
- Manage event orders, shipment and organization of event materials, signage, giveaways, name badges, lanyards, and all other ancillary requirements for on-site event needs; attendee/participant swag
- Manage team attending to ensure they are most effective and well-prepared
- Facilitate speaking and sponsorship opportunities
- Monitor and maintain annual event and membership budgets, reconcile expenses
- Identify project risks and work with the team to develop contingency plans
- Work with HR Business Partner to follow COVID-19 safety protocols for in-person event proposals
- Support event marketing by coordinating tasks such as survey sends, list pulls, invite sends, etc.
- Work with country marketing teams to execute local events and sponsorships
Skills & Qualifications
- At least 7 years of marketing event management (B2B preferred)
- Excellent project management and communication skills
- Experience influencing, leveraging, and leading cross-functional teams to successful outcomes
- Experience managing relationships with external vendors and/or membership organizations
- Previous experience managing logistics for virtual events
- Previous experience managing trade show sponsorships and on-site presence
- Previous experience managing a budget and delivering program events to meet that budget
- 6-month minimum contract
CarGurus Culture:
At the core of our company culture is a spirit of innovation, curiosity and collaboration. True to our start-up roots, we’re nimble, flexible and hardworking. We have a great respect for testing and learning and a healthy aversion to scheduling meetings to discuss meetings. Lunch is catered daily. Gym membership is free. Foosball and ping pong are played often. Now a publicly-traded company, we’re as committed as ever to cultivating the culture that got us here.
In addition to the US, CarGurus operates sites in Canada, the UK and Germany with other markets on the horizon. Our offices are located in Cambridge, MA, Detroit, MI and Dublin, Ireland. If you’d like to learn more, please visit our careers page.