Manager, Employee Events

Job description

Hi! I’m Rachel and I lead People Operations here at Ashby. I recently joined and I’m excited that we're expanding our team! The People Operations Team provides support to Ashby employees through the development and implementation of programs, policies, and services that contribute to a productive and inclusive working environment. We ensure that the work we do aligns with our Operating Principles https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/ashbys-operating-principles#operating-principles and strengthens the environment we're building at Ashby. Our approach is to do things differently – we prioritize what truly fits our team and enhances how we work together. By embracing creativity and customization, we aim to create a people-first culture that drives both individual and organizational success. We review all applications, and there isn’t a benefit to applying quickly. Take your time, look at the application questions and please submit before the application deadline! We aren’t able to take calls outside of the interview process, so reaching out to the team won’t push your application forward. ABOUT THE ROLE We’re looking for an experienced Events Manager to lead Ashby’s internal events function and deliver high-quality, memorable experiences for our team. As a fully remote team, internal events are high visibility and high impact - this fall we are holding our all-company offsite in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico for a week of connection and learning. Sitting within the People team, you’ll be accountable for Ashby’s internal events strategy and execution across company offsites, team gatherings, regional meetups, and other in-person moments that help a fully remote team feel connected. This role is first and foremost an events leadership role: you’ll set the direction, own major programs directly, and build the playbook, systems, and vendor relationships that allow the function to scale. This is a hands-on management role. You’ll be responsible for the success of our events program overall while also directly leading large, high-visibility events yourself. We’re looking for someone who combines strong operational rigor with exceptional taste and attention to detail: someone who knows that the experience matters as much as the logistics. As Ashby grows, events are becoming more complex, more global, and more important to how employees experience the company. You’ll help us raise the bar by bringing longer-term planning, repeatable operating systems, and consistent execution across events of different sizes and formats. WHAT YOU'LL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR - Leading Ashby’s internal events strategy and planning. You’ll be accountable for the overall planning and execution of internal events across the company, including major company offsites, functional offsites, and regional gatherings. - Owning major events directly. You’ll personally lead one or more of our most important events and serve as a senior driver on other high-impact programs, ensuring strong planning, excellent execution, and a high-quality employee experience from start to finish. - Managing event logistics at a high bar. You’ll oversee vendor selection and management, budgeting, travel coordination, venue planning, production, communications, timelines, and onsite execution. - Building repeatable systems and playbooks. You’ll create the processes, templates, planning rhythms, and operating infrastructure that make future events easier to execute and easier to scale. - You’ll manage and support a lean events team, clarify ownership across programs, and help create the structure needed for the team to operate effectively. - Supporting a range of event types. You’ll ensure both large-scale global programs and smaller team or regional events can happen consistently and well, with the right level of planning and support for each. - Partnering cross-functionally across Ashby. You’ll work closely with leaders across People, Finance, IT, Marketing, Workplace, and other teams to align on goals, budgets, communications, timelines, and event experience. - Raising the quality of the employee experience through events. You’ll bring a thoughtful, creative lens to how events feel for attendees — from design details to flow to moments of connection — while keeping the experience aligned with how Ashby operates. - Bringing calm, senior ownership to complex work. You’ll balance long-term planning with hands-on execution, navigate ambiguity, and keep multiple workstreams moving without sacrificing quality. YOU COULD BE A GREAT FIT IF - You have significant experience leading and executing large-scale internal events, ideally in high-growth or fast-moving environments. - You’ve planned complex events for 500+ attendees, including multi-day programs, travel-heavy experiences, and international destinations. - You’re equally strong at strategy and execution: you can define the operating model, then jump into the details to make the event successful. - You have experience managing budgets, external vendors, venue selection, travel logistics, and onsite operations. - You know how to build playbooks and scalable systems, not just pull off one great event at a time. - You have strong people and stakeholder management skills and can work effectively with leaders across many teams. - You have a high bar for quality and care deeply about the details that shape the attendee experience. - You’re comfortable leading in a lean environment where the manager is also expected to own event execution directly. - You’re energized by building structure in a growing function and improving how work gets done over time. - You’re willing and able to travel to support onsite events when needed. BONUS POINTS IF - You’ve built or scaled an internal events function at a distributed or remote-first company. - You have experience creating intake, planning, and support mechanisms for smaller team offsites or regional gatherings. - You’ve managed events with a strong brand or design component and know how to elevate the experience beyond logistics alone. - You bring adjacent experience from People, employee experience, internal communications, or related operational functions. THIS ROLE MAY NOT BE A FIT IF - You prefer to focus only on strategy or only on execution rather than doing both. - You’re uncomfortable being accountable for outcomes across a function while also directly owning major programs yourself. - You’re looking to simply replicate processes or programs from past roles without adapting them. While prior experience is valuable, success at Ashby requires applying principled thinking to determine what will work best here. - You’re uncomfortable working independently and need significant day-to-day guidance to perform your role. - You’re not comfortable building rapport and working closely with leaders at all levels across the company, including navigating competing priorities and having direct or difficult conversations when needed. - Your experience is limited to planning external events without leading internal employee experience initiatives, or you have no broader People Ops experience. While events and experience are a key part of this role, it’s important that you can also flex into other People Ops responsibilities. - You shy away from ambiguity and prefer only highly structured, predefined assignments. - You’d rather work closely with a single team than partner with multiple teams across the company. INTERVIEW PROCESS Our interview process is thorough — we aim to ensure each person joining the team is the right fit for Ashby and will provide ample information to assess if Ashby is the right fit for you. The process for this role is as follows: - Recruiter Screen with Talent Acquisition Team - 30 minutes - Hiring Manager Interview with Hiring Manager - 45 minutes - Take Home Assignment - Followed by 1 hour live session to discuss - Virtual Onsite - 1.5-2 hours - Final Round with CEO - 30 minutes ABOUT ASHBY We’re building the next generation of recruiting software and we’re starting with a suite of products that helps talent leaders, recruiters, and hiring managers run an efficient and data-driven hiring process. We are well funded and backed by great investors, including Y Combinator, Elad Gil and Lachy Groom. We have thousands of amazing customers including Snowflake, OpenAI, Shopify, Ramp, Notion, and Zapier (and many others who we cannot name!). Our growth and retention metrics are best-in-class among our peers: we have tens of millions in ARR, growing >100% year over year, very low churn, and many years of runway. We’ll share more details once we meet. In short, it's the perfect time to join! 🚀 BENEFITS - Competitive salary and equity. - 10-year exercise window for stock options. You shouldn’t feel pressure to purchase stock options if you leave Ashby —do it when you feel financially comfortable. - Unlimited PTO with four weeks recommended per year. Expect “Vacation?” in our one-on-one agenda until you start taking it 😅. - Twelve weeks of fully paid family leave in the US. We plan to expand this to employees in other countries as situations arise. - Generous equipment, software, and office furniture budget. Get what you need to be happy and productive! - $100/month education budget with more expensive items (like conferences) covered with manager approval. - If you’re in the US, top-notch health insurance for you and your dependents with all premiums covered by us. Ashby’s success hinges on hiring great people and creating an environment where we can be happy, feel challenged, and do our best work. We’re being deliberate about building that environment from the ground up. I hope that excites you enough to apply. Ashby provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetics, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. We are committed to a diverse and inclusive workforce and welcome people from all backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, and abilities. Ashby is committed to a fair and transparent hiring process. We confirm that this advertisement is for an active, existing vacancy within our organization. Please be advised that we may use artificial intelligence-driven tools to assist our recruitment team in screening, assessing, and selecting candidates for this position.