Executive Editor, Events Programming

Highlighted by its flagship annual Consensus conference, events are a vital part of CoinDesk’s mission to be the leading, integrated media platform covering the transformation of the financial system for the blockchain and digital assets community. Events embody CoinDesk’s role with that industry of a convener of the many voices, competing interests and disparate projects engaged with cryptocurrencies and blockchain.

The Executive Editor for Events Programming is a vital role within CoinDesk. That position is responsible for defining the audience experience within our events content, ensuring that it aligns with the meta-narrative behind all CoinDesk’s media coverage and sets the agenda for where this technology and its communities are headed.

We seek a person with journalistic instincts, someone who is on top of “where the story is going,” one with a keen sense of the topics that are hot, interesting and that point to the “next big thing” as well as where the tension and conflict lies within the industry and against the corporate and political establishment outside of it. They must also have a creative mindset and an entrepreneurial bent, since we strive to not only tell great stories at our events but to deliver them in a cutting edge format that draws on the unique challenges and opportunities that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to an events industry that’s starting merging online/digital experiences with the physical, in-person shows.

Our events draw in the full CoinDesk team – from sales, marketing, operations and product to editorial, research and multimedia. So, the Executive Editor for Events Programming must be a solid team player, able to work across departments and juggle competing demands. As something of a front person to the general public, they should be comfortable on stage and on screen, in an emceeing, moderating or speaking capacity.

As we head into 2022, the Executive Editor for Events Programming will help spearhead Consensus’s transformation from a single-venue, under-one-roof format to that of a multi-venue, more decentralized “festival” that’s relocating from New York to Austin, Texas. How the programming is framed, defined and delivered will establish the tone of this new model conference and establish how well it balances our interest in building a “Big Tent” event that attracts people from a wide array of interests with the need for a cohesive agenda that delivers something for everyone but also encourages cross-group networking, collaboration and information-sharing.

This role reports to CoinDesk’s Chief Content Officer

Responsibilities:

• Event programming department: manage the events programming team’s budget and personnel as it applies to content for all CoinDesk events, including the team’s roles in developing event programs, managing speaker outreach, and pursuing special content partnerships with outside entities. The initial team will consist of two direct full-time reports and will likely incorporate part-time, project-based contractors.

• Consensus: oversee all speakers and selection processes. Collaborate with internal content teams and external stakeholders to develop a program that drives the narrative in the crypto and related industries in the year ahead and which aligns with overall content objectives within editorial and multimedia. Collaborate with commercial teams, marketing, consultants, CCO and CEO on product design and in developing a lasting strategy to establish Consensus, with its new look and feel, as a major technology event within an innovative, decentralized framework.
  
  
• All other revenue-driven events: oversee content team processes to deliver live and virtual event programs aligned with commercial and audience objectives for CoinDesk’s investor-focused event series, including Bitcoin for Advisors, CoinDesk at Davos, and, potentially, the year-end Crypto 2023 look-ahead event.

• Collaborate and provide input to commercial teams on product design for live revenue-driven events, for new formats and attendee experiences in support of company core KPI to acquire, engage and retain global investors

• Experiment with and build out new types of innovative and monetizable event structures, including hybrid physical/virtual and virtual reality formats, with an eye to incorporating artistic creators from the burgeoning world of NFTs for media, entertainment and arts..

• Collaborate with audience development and content teams in the development of non-revenue live and virtual events in support of content department objectives and aligned with company’s annual objectives and core KPIs. These could include the Crypto State international virtual event series and ad hoc, issue-driven webinars attached to the Insights team’s “theme weeks.”