Manager, Event Operations

Title: Manager, Event Operations

Workplace: Marketing

Department: Events (80000905)

Location: Philadelphia, PA, US Exton, PA, US Remote, PA, US Denver, CO, US

Company: Bentley Systems

Location: Preference for hybrid in Denver, CO, Philadelphia, PA, or home-based in Boston, MA or the United States.  

Position Summary: 

Bentley is seeking an experienced event operations professional to serve as a day-to-day project lead for the company’s flagship event portfolio, including the User Conference and Year in Infrastructure awards program. 

Working closely with the VP of Global Events, this role coordinates planning cadence, workstream management, operational readiness, agency activity, and cross-functional follow-through across a complex ecosystem of stakeholders and partners. Success in this role requires the ability to build strong working relationships, anticipate risks, and help teams move from ideas to execution with confidence. 

The ideal candidate thrives in fast-moving environments and brings strong organizational discipline, practical problem-solving ability, and a bias toward action. They excel at creating structure, maintaining momentum, and helping teams navigate complexity with clarity and confidence. 

Responsibilities: 

• Program Delivery & Workstream Leadership 

• • Serve as a day-to-day operational project lead for Bentley’s flagship programs, including the User Conference and Year in Infrastructure Awards program. 

• • Build and maintain integrated workback schedules, critical paths, and milestone plans across all phases of delivery. 

• • Facilitate planning cadence, workstream meetings, readiness reviews, and issue-resolution forums that keep programs moving forward. 

• • Coordinate accountability and follow-through across internal teams, agency partners, and stakeholders, helping ensure commitments are met and dependencies are proactively managed. 

• • Identify risks, facilitate decisions, and escalate issues before they impact delivery. 

• • Maintain visibility into cross-functional dependencies and ensure decisions, action items, and milestones remain on track throughout the event lifecycle. 

• • Partner closely with the VP of Global Events to ensure strategic vision and experience objectives are translated into executable plans. 

• Operational Readiness & Event Execution 

• • Coordinate operational readiness across registration, housing, transportation, food and beverage, staffing, keynote, content, show floor, speaker logistics, executive programs, and onsite support workstreams. 

• • Partner with Experience Design and Programming & Content Operations teams to ensure creative, content, and production requirements are translated into executable plans and delivered according to schedule. 

• • Facilitate operational readiness reviews and support issue resolution across major workstreams in advance of critical milestones and onsite execution. 

• • Provide onsite operational leadership during load-in, show operations, load-out, and post-event closeout activities. 

• Agency & Partner Leadership 

• • Serve as the day-to-day operational point of contact for agency and production partners. 

• • Coordinate agency schedules, deliverables, and dependencies to ensure work progresses with clarity and accountability. 

• • Help external partners operate as effective extensions of the Bentley team. 

• Operational Excellence & Process Improvement 

• • Document lessons learned and incorporate improvements into future planning frameworks, templates, and playbooks. 

• • Identify opportunities to simplify workflows and improve team efficiency through practical application of AI-enabled tools, automation, and modern ways of working. 

• • Contribute to the ongoing evolution and maturity of Bentley’s event delivery model. 

• • Promote operational discipline and best practices across the event delivery team. 

• 30% travel required, could be domestic and international.  

• Requires sitting or standing at will while performing work on a computer (or any other physical requirements).  

Qualifications: 

• 5–8 years of progressive experience in event operations, event project management, or a related field, including experience supporting the delivery of large-scale corporate conferences or other complex, multi-day events within a technology company. 

• Experience with enterprise technology events or other high-visibility corporate programs is preferred. 

• Demonstrated ability to create structure, maintain planning cadence, and coordinate work across cross-functional teams and external partners. 

• Strong project management skills with experience managing detailed schedules, multiple priorities, and tight timelines. 

• Experience coordinating agencies, production partners, venues, or other event vendors, including management of assigned scopes, schedules, and deliverables. 

• Strong communication skills and the ability to maintain momentum and alignment across cross-functional teams. 

• Ability to build productive relationships and encourage follow-through without direct authority. 

• Experience building workback schedules, tracking risks and dependencies, and escalating decisions or issues appropriately. 

• Curiosity and openness toward AI-enabled workflows, automation, and modern approaches to project management and event delivery. 

• Strong attention to detail and sound judgment when working through operational issues. 

• Experience with event technologies, project management platforms, and collaborative planning tools. 

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience. 

• Willingness to travel domestically and internationally and provide onsite operational leadership for assigned areas during event execution. 

What Success Looks Like:

• Bentley’s flagship events are delivered with operational excellence and a consistently high-quality participant experience. 

• Teams have clear priorities, reliable follow-through, and confidence in the delivery process. 

• Risks are surfaced early and resolved before they impact execution. 

• Agencies and partners operate as seamless extensions of the Bentley team. 

• Strategic vision and experience objectives are translated into executable plans and delivered successfully. 

• Lessons learned are captured and incorporated into stronger frameworks, processes, and playbooks. 

• Bentley’s event delivery organization continues to mature through scalable frameworks, modern tools, and disciplined execution. 

What We Offer: 

• A great Team and culture – please see our colleague video.  

• An exciting career as an integral part of a world-leading software company providing solutions for architecture, engineering, and construction - watch this short documentary about how we got our start.  

• An attractive salary and benefits package.  

• A commitment to inclusion, belonging and colleague wellbeing through global initiatives and resource groups.  

• A company committed to making a real difference by advancing the world’s infrastructure for better quality of life, where your contributions help build a more sustainable, connected, and resilient world. Discover our latest user success stories for an insight into our global impact.