Senior Manager, Event Activation & Execution

Job Description

Holland America Line has been exploring the world since 1873. Our ships offer innovative features and enriching experiences focused on destination exploration and personalized travel, inviting guests to savor the journey.

We are looking for a Senior Manager, Event Activation & Execution. The Senior Manager, Event Activation & Execution is responsible for the strategic planning and execution of sales events and experiential initiatives across Holland America Line and Seabourn. This role owns the delivery of high-impact sales events, industry conferences, and sales meetings that support trade engagement and commercial objectives, while providing leadership to a team responsible for execution and coordination.

Here’s a summary of what Holland America Line is looking for. Is this you?

• Strategic Event & Channel Planning:
  Develop the multi-year strategic roadmap for sales events, FAM trip programming, trade engagement experiences, and conference presence across HAL/SBN, ensuring alignment with commercial priorities and revenue growth objectives. Translate brand and commercial strategy into an annual events framework, prioritizing initiatives based on expected ROI, market trends, and trade partner needs.

• Portfolio Ownership & Resource Allocation:
  Serve as the strategic owner of the dual-brand sales events portfolio, determining which events to activate annually and the level of investment for each. Make data-driven recommendations on resource allocation, budget prioritization, and event scaling to maximize commercial outcomes.

• Enterprise Stakeholder Leadership:
  Lead cross-functional steering groups (Sales, Brand, Revenue, Deployment, Mar Tech, Onboard Operations) to align event strategies with enterprise-wide objectives. Influence senior stakeholders by presenting event strategies, performance insights, and investment recommendations.

• Vendor Strategy & Negotiation Authority:
  Oversee vendor strategy, including selection, contract negotiation within delegated limits, performance evaluation, and optimization of service costs across the event portfolio. Establish long-term vendor partnerships that improve consistency, reduce cost of delivery, and enhance brand impact across trade channels.

• Team Leadership & Capability Development:
  Build and lead a high-performance team capable of executing large-scale, complex events across multiple geographies and brands. Define team structure, role expectations, and capability development plans, ensuring bandwidth and expertise align with growth ambitions.

• Governance & Standards Creation:
  Create and enforce events governance frameworks, standardizing planning cycles, brand consistency, reporting expectations, and risk mitigation across all event types. Set enterprise standards for physical sales assets, FAM trip quality, site inspections, and trade show representation.

• Performance Measurement & Optimization:
  Define key performance indicators (KPIs) for events and experiential initiatives; develop reporting dashboards and deliver insights to senior leaders that influence future priorities and investment decisions. Perform ROI evaluation on major events and recommend modifications to improve commercial impact and operational efficiency.

• Sales Channel Influence & Go-to-Market Integration:
  Partner with Sales and Brand leadership to embed event strategy into go-to-market plans, ensuring experiences directly support channel acquisition, trade loyalty, and revenue goals. Shape how HAL/SBN show up within trade and conference environments, elevating the value proposition for partners at every touchpoint. National & Global Sales Meetings plan and execute alternating national and global sales meetings, ensuring seamless delivery, cross-functional alignment, and clear linkage to commercial objectives.

• Trade Show Merchandise & Logo Ware:
  Own the strategy and execution of trade show merchandise and branded logo ware, ensuring brand alignment, quality standards, and effective utilization.

• This role serves as the enterprise leader for dual-brand sales experiences and is accountable for the strategic direction, planning, and execution of high-visibility events that directly influence commercial performance. The position holds authority for multi-year events planning, vendor selection and negotiation within defined thresholds, standards creation, and governance of all physical trade assets across HAL/SBN. The Senior Manager leads cross-functional teams and oversees a portfolio of events that represent multi-million dollar commercial impact and significant trade relationship influence.

• Confident decision maker with ability to quickly identify risks and benefits

• Demonstrated ability to act independently and provide decisive direction

• Strengthens brand presence and credibility within the travel trade by ensuring strategic, professional execution of national account conferences, industry events, and sales meetings.

• Enhances customer and partner decision making by…