CASSS.org

You are a natural born leader. You love to inspire, encourage, and motivate people to achieve their highest potential. You’re a terrific coach, mentor, and team builder. You’re also a world class project leader who can artfully orchestrate a team of meeting planners in charge of numerous domestic and international meetings. You’re skilled at $multi-million budget management, workflow timelines, and helping ensure flawless event execution.

**Just as important, you’re at a place in your career where you no longer want to plan every meeting detail but are excited to manage those who do.

If this sounds like you, CASSS may be your next professional home!

WHAT IS CASSS?

CASSS is a 12-staff, non-profit scientific organization that brings together professionals from industry, academia, and regulatory agencies globally to solve scientific and technical problems in order to advance the development of biopharmaceuticals. CASSS enables regulatory capacity building, knowledge-sharing and global access by leveraging strategic partnerships, scientific expertise, and a diversity of views in all of our activities.  CASSS organizes scientific symposia, maintains an industry-related on-line job board, and maintains an archive of related summary papers and presentations.

WHAT YOU’LL BE DOING:

Reporting to the Executive Director and serving as part of the senior staff, you’ll manage a $4M budget and supervise a five-person meeting planning team. Your primary objective is to lead and grow CASSS’ large event portfolio – a key member value – in a post-COVID world. Currently the association organizes 12-15 multi-day, US-based and global scientific conferences, and several smaller meetings annually, ranging in size from 100 – 250 attendees. As staff capacity and resources allow, you’ll help launch and execute additional meetings so that the organization can expand its value.

You’ll be responsible for team building and management, project tracking, final hotel contract review, budget management and financial reporting, and event technologies (virtual meetings platforms, abstract/speaker portal, etc.). You’ll also oversee (not directly execute) all meeting logistics, including committee management, speaker and volunteer recruitment, site selection, including initial contract negotiations, registration, marketing, and exhibit/partnerships.

An “all hands on deck” aspect of this role is project leadership for the WCBP Symposium, CASSS’ signature conference with up to 900 attendees, which involves coordinating the contributions of multiple staff and volunteers. For this event, you’ll partner closely with the Director of Strategic Global Engagement and Knowledge Sharing, who will serve as an advisor on the educational aspects of the Symposium.

WHAT YOU WON’T BE DOING:

To ensure that this role is the right fit with your career motivators, we want to re-emphasize that you won’t be planning day-to-day meeting logistics; rather, you’ll be supervising those who do.

WHO YOU ARE:

• An outstanding project leader who can empower staff and volunteers to deliver their best every day.
• An innovative entrepreneur who can develop strategies for profitable growth in alignment with CASSS’ strategic business plan.
• A highly relational people manager and team leader who can foster a climate of transparency, collaboration, and trust.
• A fair and flexible, yet decisive, leader able to skillfully guide a team forward without micromanagement, while embracing a “fail-up” (continuous learning) mindset.
• A detail-oriented, organized project manager able to anticipate risks, balance competing priorities and remove logistical roadblocks.
• A savvy communicator able to earn the respect of a highly educated, global audience.

WHAT YOU BRING TO THE TABLE:

• You have solid experience managing a team of association meeting planners (at least two) who have been responsible for executing multiple annual meetings.  
• You have a strategic lens around best practices in the design and execution of association conferences.
• You understand the nuances of recruiting and managing volunteers.
• You have experience building and managing at least a $2M budget. 
• You have outstanding project management skills and proficiency using project management software – preferably Asana.
• You have expertise in the design and execution of conferences – both in-person and online – including formats, technologies, logistics, vendor relations, and contract negotiations. And you’re comfortable learning the nuances and requirements of scientific conferences within a regulated industry.

COMPENSATION: $140,000

LOCATION: This is a remote role that will also require up to 15% travel including occasional international travel.

TO APPLY:

This is a retained search. Please submit your application to Shira Lotzar of Purposeful Hire at shira@purposefulhire.com. You are strongly encouraged to thoughtfully customize your cover letter and resume to highlight your project leadership expertise including

• the number of staff you’ve supervised
• the size budget you’ve managed
• your leadership and management style
• any other relevant qualifications in the posting