The Roots of Progress Institute (RPI) is seeking an Event Manager, to bring together people and foster community in and around the growing progress movement.

RPI is a nonprofit dedicated to building a culture of progress and restoring a bold, ambitious vision of the future. We are part of the broader progress movement that was kicked off in The Atlantic and has been profiled by BBC and Vox. Our founder and president, Jason Crawford, is quoted as a spokesman for progress in those stories, and we are known as a central organization in that movement.

Our annual Progress Conference is the main event for the community, with headliners including founders of billion-dollar companies (Patrick Collison, Sam Altman, Dimitri Dolgov), Nobel laureates in physics and economics (John Martinis, Michael Kremer), and heads of government agencies like DARPA (Steven Winchell) and OSTP (Michael Kratsios). The conference is sold out every year with hundreds on the waitlist, and participants rave about it each year: “like reading Leonardo DaVinci’s notebooks”, “the best event I’ve ever attended”, “will be paying dividends for many years”, “the quality of people and conversations was pure gold”.

With this strong track record, we want to do even more events and community building. The biggest next step is Progress Conference Europe, planned for Amsterdam in late spring 2027. This is our first event outside the US, and the flagship project for this role. Alongside it, we are planning more specialized events, such as workshops with professors, journalists, or storytellers. We're also eager to pilot one-day regional events in the US and to expand our online community efforts.

As the Event Manager, you will of course be in charge of all the operational details of the events you run. But what sets this opportunity apart for the right candidate is your ability to fully own both strategy and execution. We operate like a startup, with high autonomy. The right candidate will be able to shape the programming of our events—from choosing topics for conference track talks, to designing working sessions, to communicating with speakers and partners in the service of events. And the bar is high: If successful, these events are where new ideas and projects get incubated and where long-term relationships form between people who might just change the world.

You will be responsible for:

• Progress Conference Europe, planned for Amsterdam in late spring/early summer 2027

• Additional events TBD—such as another regional conference, or more focused workshops for university professors or other participants

• Supporting events in service of other programs, such as the Progress in Medicine summer career exploration program for high school students, or the book launch for Jason’s forthcoming book with MIT Press, The Progress Manifesto

How we'll measure success:

• Reach: Attendance across the events you run

• Financial sustainability. Our events are expected to be largely self-funding. You'll own the budget for your events, and work with our Development Manager (once hired) on sponsorship and with the team on ticket revenue, so that the events program sustains itself over time rather than drawing on funding meant for other work.

• Quality: We're proud of our attendee satisfaction, with NPS typically 70+, and you'll own that for your events.

We also track outcomes particular to each event—new courses launched after a workshop for university professors, for instance. Getting better at measuring what events actually produce (projects started, collaborations formed, careers changed) is something we want to improve on, and we'd want your thinking on it.

You will own the events you're responsible for from start to finish, working with RPI's leadership on programming decisions—speaker selection, track design, and the shape of the experience.

Day-to-day tasks might include:

• Venue & vendor management—assessing locations and production partners, negotiating contracts, managing venue execution

• Collaboration with the Development Manager to raise sponsorship funding & communicate event results to sponsors

• Collaboration with event partners and co-hosts

• Speaker management—securing speakers, coordinating their talks and logistics

• Program design and execution—event flow, non-speaker programming (e.g., book signing, evening entertainment, VIP reception, factory or lab tours)

• Guest management—invite list management, ticket sales, application review for open applications, attendee communications

• Event marketing and communications—website, outreach posts, post-event video production—in coordination with the Head of Content (once hired)

• Event operations—scheduling, badges, swag, catering, AV, check-in management and all the many details that make an event great

• Manage the event budget and ensure financial goals are met

• And much more that you will figure out!

You will report to Heike Larson, our Vice President of Programs. You’ll work closely with Ben Thomas, our first event manager, who will bring you up to speed; you’ll support each other during high workload phases around each event.