Events and Communications Lead
$170,000–$190,000 year
On-siteEmeryville, California, United States
Job Summary
Design and run events end-to-end, from symposia to Friday socials, managing venue, vendors, logistics, and guest experience while building operational infrastructure like playbooks, vendor relationships, and budgets to scale programming. Partner with leadership to shape external communications strategy and steward Astera's voice across the website, written materials, and social channels, including writing, editing, and coordinating updates. Manage a roster of external contractors and consultants, scoping work and delivering output on time and budget, while flexing to support hub operations and cross-functional projects during peak periods. This onsite role in Emeryville, CA reports to the COO, requiring a candidate comfortable defining a modern research institute culture in an early-stage environment.
Required Qualifications
- Demonstrated ability to design and execute high-quality convenings end-to-end, including the unglamorous logistics that determine whether they work
- Capable writer, able to draft as needed in a voice applicable to Astera, and to give substantive editorial direction on everything else
- Comfortable directing comms work and managing external contracts end-to-end across modalities (writing, design, web, video, social), including the judgment to know when to draft something yourself vs. bring in a specialist
- Experience building the systems, playbooks, vendor relationships, and budgets that let programming scale without losing quality
- Track record of working closely with technical or research-driven people in a way that earned their trust
- Motivated by enabling science and technology that could reshape the future
- Excited to define what a modern research institute looks and feels like, rather than inheriting an established playbook
- Thrives in early-stage environments where the role will evolve significantly and the path forward is often ambiguous: comfortable proposing direction while staying calibrated to leadership's priorities
- Values giving and receiving direct feedback as a cultural multiplier, and sees AI tools as an opportunity to uplevel how the work gets done
- Generous collaborator who doesn't maintain strong boundaries around what 'isn't your job'
- Onsite in Emeryville, CA
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