Field Marketing Event Strategy Lead

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At SAP, we enable you to bring out your best. Our company culture is focused on collaboration and a shared passion to help the world run better. How? We focus every day on building the foundation for tomorrow and creating a workplace that embraces differences, values flexibility, and is aligned to our purpose-driven and future-focused work. We offer a highly collaborative, caring team environment with a strong focus on learning and development, recognition for your individual contributions, and a variety of benefit options for you to choose from. 

Objective & Purpose

The Strategic Events lead is the primary owner of events strategy and tier 1 event execution for North America Field Marketing.  Success in this role includes world-class execution of Tier 1 events on behalf of SAP North America in support of pipeline, revenue and pipeline conversion goals; and leading the entire NAM organization to reimagining the role, weight and strategy for live events in the overall marketing mix.  An elevation in the strategic role of events will provide an important contribution to the overall success and evolution of North America Marketing and the SAP North America region.

This position is an integral part of the NA Experience and Events team.  This team develops, pilots and executes next-gen, innovative, marketing competencies that contribute to a consistent, exceptional customer experience both online and offline, while promoting the SAP brand narrative.  We do this as a team of player-coaches, to ensure high levels of execution in these competencies while transferring knowledge across NAFM.  This role reports to the VP of NA Experience and Events.

Specific duties include a combination of Events Strategy and Events Activation that include:

Events Strategy:

• Global Strategy Implementation: Work closely with leadership from the SAP Global Events team to ensure that the global SAP event strategy is implemented successfully within North America. Represent North America in the Global Events Council, providing a point of view and field-level feedback to shape strategy evolution. Our region should be an early adopter of new strategy and an example of best practices.
• Tier 1 Event Leadership: Apply experience to ensure the North America is leading in innovative practices for Tier 1 event planning and execution.
• Strategic Planning: Collaborate independently with Business Planning, Marketing Planning, and Business Development/Management to determine strategic goals for NA Marketing and translate these into a cohesive events plan.
• Brand Infusion: Ensure SAP brand presence is integrated into events to reinforce brand identity and provide a stronger, updated linkage for marketing events to the ongoing audience engagement needs of NA sales and executive management leaders.
• External Relationships: Leverage partnerships with external organizations (e.g., associations, media partners, customer groups, SAP partners) to expand awareness and reach among diverse audiences and reach existing audiences in new ways.
• Center of Excellence: Develop a Center of Excellence for NAFM plan owners on their use of events, including; best practices, templates, and quality assurance; weighting within the marketing mix, alternatives to live events as needed; and maximizing the pipeline contribution yield from our use of events; best practice stakeholder communications templates for usage across NAFM.
• Strategic Vendor Management: Partner with Global Purchasing Organization and NAFM key stakeholders to strategically source innovative and high performing vendors/agencies, and manage the relationships, pricing and strategy across North America for our most-used event vendors for hosted and third-party events.

Events Activation:

• Program Management Office (PMO): Lead Tier 1 events in North America, including events like SAP Sapphire, SAP Select, and CxO Executive Exchanges.
• Innovation in Event Execution: Innovate new event platforms and techniques to enhance event management and execution as well as customer experience.
• Event Program Development: Plan and develop event programs with clear target audiences, value propositions, and tactics aligned with event goals, in collaboration with Marketing Execution.
• Event Operations Management: Oversee project plan management, venue logistics, content flow, catering, entertainment, marketing communications, field enablement, onsite management, and vendor management for Tier 1 events.
• Stakeholder Communication: Manage communication with all stakeholders, including executives and board members, ensuring smooth planning and execution.
• Event Follow-up: Collaborate with the Demand Generation Manager for effective post-event engagement tracking and follow-up.
• Budget & Timeline Management: Manage event timelines and budgets, ensuring financial alignment and timely project execution.
• C-Level Customer Interaction: Act as a customer-facing representative at C-level and board level events, ensuring high-quality engagement.
• Core Planning Meetings: Lead core planning meetings across marketing groups, fostering alignment on shared objectives, ensuring workstream owners are correctly aligned and on track against the project plan.
• Impact Measurement: Assess program progress and results against defined metrics to meet or exceed program goals and support advancing the sales cycle while maintaining ROI. Implement continuous improvements in processes, resources, and structure.

Successful candidates will:

• Have 10+ years of experience in field marketing roles at B2B organizations
• Have experience working on Global Events and Executive Experience teams and proven success in planning and executing Tier 1 programs
• Leadership and change management skillsets are essential for success in this role
• Be comfortable and skilled at managing stakeholder relationships in sometimes difficult circumstances
• Have at least five years of experience in program design, management, and execution
• Be able to operate at both a strategic and “hands dirty” level
• Be creative and able to drive inspiring programs and assets that are eagerly adopted by the field and their customers
• Have excellent writing, communications and presentation skills
• Have excellent planning and time management skills in a highly time critical and multi-priority environment
• Have experience and demonstrated competence in managing large budgets
• Be skilled at providing direction to external agency and contractor resources
• Have the technical competence to become quickly proficient at the tools required to support the business

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Bring out your best

SAP innovations help more than four hundred thousand customers worldwide work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively. Originally known for leadership in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, SAP has evolved to become a market leader in end-to-end business application software and related services for database, analytics, intelligent technologies, and experience management. As a cloud company with two hundred million users and more than one hundred thousand employees worldwide, we are purpose-driven and future-focused, with a highly collaborative team ethic and commitment to personal development. Whether connecting global industries, people, or platforms, we help ensure every challenge gets the solution it deserves. At SAP, you can bring out your best.  

We win with inclusion

SAP’s culture of inclusion, focus on health and well-being, and flexible working models help ensure that everyone – regardless of background – feels included and can run at their best. At SAP, we believe we are made stronger by the unique capabilities and qualities that each person brings to our company, and we invest in our employees to inspire confidence and help everyone realize their full potential. We ultimately believe in unleashing all talent and creating a better and more equitable world.
SAP is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to the values of Equal Employment Opportunity and provide accessibility accommodations to applicants with physical and/or mental disabilities. If you are interested in applying for employment with SAP and are in need of accommodation or special assistance to navigate our website or to complete your application, please send an e-mail with your request to Recruiting Operations Team: Careers@sap.com.
For SAP employees: Only permanent roles are eligible for the SAP Employee Referral Program, according to the eligibility rules set in the SAP Referral Policy. Specific conditions may apply for roles in Vocational Training.

EOE AA M/F/Vet/Disability

Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their age, race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, age, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, et al), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status, or disability.

Compensation Range Transparency: SAP believes the value of pay transparency contributes towards an honest and supportive culture and is a significant step toward demonstrating SAP’s commitment to pay equity. SAP provides the annualized compensation range inclusive of base salary and variable incentive target for the career level applicable to the posted role. The targeted combined range for this position is 142,500 - 327,100 USD. The actual amount to be offered to the successful candidate will be within that range, dependent upon the key aspects of each case which may include education, skills, experience, scope of the role, location, etc. as determined through the selection process. Any SAP variable incentive includes a targeted dollar amount and any actual payout amount is dependent on company and personal performance. Please reference this link for a summary of SAP benefits and eligibility requirements: SAP North America Benefits.

Requisition ID: 411145 | Work Area:Marketing  | Expected Travel: 0 - 10% | Career Status: Professional | Employment Type: Regular Full Time | Additional Locations: #LI-Hybrid

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