Events and Communications Lead

Event Management (40%)

• Design and run events end-to-end, from symposia to Friday socials: venue, vendors, logistics, guest experience, and the details that separate a good event from a memorable one.
• Build the operational infrastructure that lets programming scale: playbooks, vendor relationships, budgets, and tooling.
• Partner with Division leadership in developing the events and moments that accelerate our programming.
• Build the social fabric that turns a collection of researchers into a community, including the unstructured moments where good conversations happen.

Communications (40%)

• Partner with leadership to shape Astera's external comms strategy (audiences, channels, content, etc) and own execution against it.
• Steward Astera's voice across the website, written materials, and external touchpoints, in close collaboration with leadership.
• Manage website, blog, and socials, including writing, editing, and coordinating updates as Astera's work evolves.
• Run the calendar of external-facing moments and the production pipeline behind it.
• Build and manage a roster of external contractors and consultants (writers, designers, PR, etc.) — knowing when to bring in specialists, scoping the work, and getting great output on Astera's timeline and budget.

General Operations (20%)

• Flex to the "unknown unknowns" of a young, growing organization — event logistics, hub operations, cross-functional support during peak periods, and special projects across the Operations stack.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated ability to design and execute high-quality convenings end-to-end, including the unglamorous logistics that determine whether they work.
• Capable writer, able to draft as needed in a voice applicable to Astera, and to give substantive editorial direction on everything else.
• Comfortable directing comms work and managing external contracts end-to-end across modalities (writing, design, web, video, social), including the judgment to know when to draft something yourself vs. bring in a specialist.
• Experience building the systems, playbooks, vendor relationships, and budgets that let programming scale without losing quality.
• Track record of working closely with technical or research-driven people in a way that earned their trust.
• Motivated by enabling science and technology that could reshape the future.
• Excited to define what a modern research institute looks and feels like, rather than inheriting an established playbook.
• Thrives in early-stage environments where the role will evolve significantly and the path forward is often ambiguous: comfortable proposing direction while staying calibrated to leadership's priorities.
• Values giving and receiving direct feedback as a cultural multiplier, and sees AI tools as an opportunity to uplevel how the work gets done.
• Generous collaborator who doesn't maintain strong boundaries around what "isn't your job".