Founding Experiential Marketing Lead

Job description

TL;DR: We’re hiring our Founding Experiential Marketing Lead to work directly with our Head of Marketing and help scale Listen from $XXM → $100M+ ARR. You’ll help shape how our brand shows up in the world by creating events and experiences that people genuinely want to be part of — from standout moments at major industry conferences to intimate dinners, customer gatherings, and entirely new event concepts. This is a high-ownership role for someone who combines taste, creativity, and exceptional execution and wants to build something from 0-1 at a breakout company in the AI era. Min. 4+ years in experiential marketing, events, brand experiences, field marketing, or related roles. You don't need to come from a traditional SaaS events background — we care more about your creative judgment, track record of producing memorable experiences, and ability to turn an idea into reality. You should be equally comfortable dreaming up a new concept, sweating the details, and getting in the weeds to make it happen. Excitement about travel and working in a fast-paced startup environment is important. BACKGROUND Listen Labs is the world's fastest AI research platform, built so every company can understand what their customers want, why, and what to do about it. Our AI conducts in-depth interviews, analyzes conversations, and delivers executive-ready insights in hours, not weeks. Born out of a Harvard research project, Listen is trusted by teams at leading brands like Google, Microsoft, Anthropic, Perplexity, Sweetgreen, Replit, and Nestlé to bring real customer voices into their biggest product, marketing, and growth decisions. COMPANY HIGHLIGHTS - World-Class Team: Founded by serial entrepreneurs — Alfred (Bemlo, YC W22) and Florian (IOI medalist, ICPC World Finalist) — and built with talent from Google, Meta, Tesla, Amazon, Jane Street, and X, alongside Bain, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, and Sequoia-backed startups like Applied Intuition, Scale AI, and Rippling. Over 30% of our team are former founders, and multiple are competitive programming medalists. - Hypergrowth: Since launching, Listen has grown annualized revenue 15x and completed over 2 million interviews — backed by $100M in total funding led by Ribbit Capital, with Sequoia, Conviction, and Pear VC participating. - Traction: Already serving 15% of Fortune 100s. Enterprise wins and expansions across Anthropic, Microsoft, Nestlé, Perplexity, Sweetgreen, and more — with teams telling us research that used to take six to eight weeks now happens in days. WHAT YOU’LL DO - Partner with the Head of Marketing to shape Listen’s experiential and events strategy, defining how we show up in the market and building a distinctive event presence from the ground up. - Reimagine how Listen shows up at industry conferences, elevating booth presence, speaking moments, sponsorships, and adjacent experiences so every appearance feels unmistakably Listen and gives people a reason to seek us out. - Create and produce owned experiences from scratch, from intimate dinners and customer roundtables to salons, pop-ups, cultural moments, and larger brand experiences. Develop formats people genuinely want to attend — not just another corporate event. - Build the playbook for Listen’s events program, establishing repeatable concepts, creative standards, production processes, and measurement frameworks while leaving room to experiment and try new things. - Partner closely with sales, product marketing, design, and leadership to bring experiences to life and ensure they ladder up to broader campaigns, customer priorities, and business goals. - Own the details from concept to execution, including venues, vendors, budgets, creative, guest lists, programming, production, and on-site execution. - Measure performance, gather learnings, and continuously raise the bar on what we do — doubling down on what works and killing what doesn't. WHO YOU ARE - You have taste. You have a strong POV on what makes an experience memorable and know how to create moments that feel fresh, unexpected, and distinctly on-brand. - You’re a builder. You’re excited by the opportunity to create a 0-1 events and experiential function rather than inherit an established playbook. - You’re a strong operator. You can manage dozens of moving pieces without losing quality, and you're the person who catches the detail everyone else missed. - You know how to create energy. You understand what makes people want to show up, stay, connect, and talk about an experience afterward. - You’re creatively ambitious but scrappy. You can dream up the big idea, then figure out how to make it happen with the resources you have. - You’re commercially minded. You care about pipeline, customer relationships, brand impact, and business outcomes — not just attendance numbers or event logistics. - You’re highly collaborative and low-ego. You can work across sales, marketing, design, product, and leadership and bring people together around a shared vision. - You’re comfortable being hands-on. You’re just as willing to negotiate with a vendor or fix something on-site as you are to pitch the big creative concept. - You’re excited to travel. You want to be in the field representing Listen and creating experiences in the real world. - You have 4+ years of relevant experience in experiential marketing, events, brand experiences, field marketing, or a related discipline. Experience in B2B SaaS is a plus, but not required. LIFE AT LISTEN LABS - Health, covered: Full medical, dental, and vision. FSA/HSA and life insurance are available too. - Competitive compensation: Backed by world-class investors including Sequoia, Ribbit Capital, Conviction, and Pear VC — we hire the best and treat them accordingly, with meaningful equity ownership. - The range for this role is $150,000 – $300,000 OTE. Actual compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors, including but not limited to skill set, experience, and work location. If this range doesn't match your expectations, we still encourage you to apply. - Annual Learning Stipend: Books, courses, conferences, coaching, language lessons — almost anything that makes you sharper. - Annual Wellness Stipend for your health and headspace: Gym memberships, race fees, massages, ergonomic gear, and more. - Monthly Stipend for AI tools: A dedicated budget for the software and GPU credits that make you faster. - Fed, daily: A private chef serves lunch and dinner in our SF office; NYC and London teams get daily meal credit. - Flexible time off: A take-what-you-need vacation policy. - We celebrate together: Company offsites (Hawaii this Summer!) and events like our annual holiday party — every win is a team win. - Room to grow: As an early member of the team, you'll own end-to-end processes from scratch and grow alongside the company.