Senior Event Manager

Role overview

TEDxMaitama is looking for a seasoned, highly organized, and outcome-focused Senior Event Manager to own the planning and delivery of conferences, salons, webinars, partner activations, and community-facing programs. Based in Abuja, Nigeria, this is a remote position that reports to the Convener & Executive Director.

The person in this role will translate event goals into memorable experiences for attendees, speakers, sponsors, partners, and other stakeholders. Success in this position depends on solid project management, strong stakeholder coordination, sharp attention to detail, leadership capability, and comfort working in fast-moving environments. The role is central to advancing TEDxMaitama’s mission of building one of Africa’s most influential platforms for ideas worth sharing.

Event strategy and planning

You will take charge of the full lifecycle of TEDxMaitama conferences, salons, workshops, webinars, and special events. This includes building detailed timelines, work plans, and execution structures, managing budgets and spend, and preparing risk and contingency plans. All activity must stay aligned with TEDx requirements and TEDxMaitama’s standards.

Operations and logistics

The role involves overseeing venue selection, physical setup, technical needs, branding, registration systems, and attendee movement. You will also coordinate audiovisual production, stage setup, lighting, livestreaming, and recording. In addition, you will manage ticketing, guest handling, accreditation, transportation, accommodation, catering, and hospitality when needed.

Team leadership

You will guide volunteers, event coordinators, and cross-functional teams, run planning meetings, keep communication clear across stakeholders, assign tasks, and track delivery across departments. Mentoring junior team members and encouraging a high-performance, accountable culture is also part of the job.

Speaker and VIP coordination

This position requires managing speaker schedules and logistics, as well as the experience of VIP guests, government officials, sponsors, partners, and special invitees. You will work closely with the speaker curation team to support speaker preparedness and ensure smooth on-stage delivery.

Vendor and partner management

You will source, negotiate with, and manage vendors and service providers, including contracts, deliverables, and service expectations. The role also includes quality checks across vendor work and close coordination with sponsors and partners to deliver their activation and branding commitments.

Budgeting and financial control

The Senior Event Manager will build event budgets and forecasts, monitor spending, and ensure resources are used efficiently. You will negotiate pricing and added-value services with vendors, then prepare post-event financial summaries and recommendations.

Event-day execution

During live events, you will act as the main operational lead, coordinate all moving parts, and resolve issues quickly as they arise. The focus is on keeping production, logistics, volunteers, speakers, and partners synchronized while maintaining a premium attendee experience and strong operational discipline.

Monitoring, evaluation, and reporting

You will define event KPIs and success measures, gather feedback from attendees, sponsors, speakers, and partners, and create post-event reports with insights and improvement actions. Capturing lessons learned and documenting best practices for future events is also expected.

Qualifications

A bachelor’s degree in Event Management, Project Management, Business Administration, Marketing, Communications, Hospitality, or a closely related discipline is required. A master’s degree or professional certification will be considered an advantage.

Applicants should have 5–8 years of experience managing large-scale events, including conferences, exhibitions, summits, or corporate programs. Prior work on events with 500+ attendees is required, along with experience handling sponsors, government stakeholders, media partners, and vendors. Candidates must also be comfortable managing budgets and multiple stakeholders at the same time.

Required skills and competencies

Strong capability in event planning, project coordination, budgeting, logistics, vendor management, event technology, hybrid and livestream production, and risk planning is essential. The role also demands excellent organization, leadership, communication, problem solving, calm performance under pressure, attention to detail, and the ability to think strategically while executing effectively.

Performance expectations

Success in this role will be measured by the smooth delivery of TEDxMaitama events, staying within budget, strong attendee satisfaction, positive sponsor and partner feedback, vendor efficiency, audience engagement, effective team coordination, and timely completion of milestones.

Why this role stands out

Join one of Africa’s prominent TEDx platforms and work alongside innovators, entrepreneurs, policymakers, investors, and changemakers. This opportunity offers the chance to build high-impact events, grow professionally, expand your network, and contribute to initiatives that inspire meaningful change.