Experiential Marketing Lead

About Standard Bots

Standard Bots is America’s industrial robot company. We’re building the world’s most accessible robotics platform to bring AI-native automation into manufacturing and beyond to propel human productivity toward a more abundant future.

We’re looking for an Experiential Marketing Lead to reimagine how Standard Bots shows up in the world. You’ll conceive and direct distinctive, memorable brand experiences that stop engineers and operators in their tracks — experiences that communicate our vision for Physical AI and make people want to engage with Standard Bots. You’ll own the full portfolio: from flagship trade shows to intimate customer summits to bold, unexpected activations. Your work will set us apart in an industry where most exhibitors blend into the background. You’ll report into marketing leadership and partner closely with the CEO and Chief Commercial Officer to ensure every experience drives both brand impact and measurable commercial outcomes.

Role overview

This is a creative leadership role for someone who combines experiential design sensibility with commercial acumen and operational rigor. You’ll own the vision for Standard Bots’ event and activation strategy: deciding which stages matter most, designing experiences that reflect our brand and values, building the systems and partnerships to bring those experiences to life at scale, and measuring what actually moves the needle. You’ll think like a creative director, work like an operator, and speak the language of revenue attribution.

Standard Bots’ 2026 vision is to become America’s most distinctive and memorable robot exhibitor. This means expanding into new verticals — aerospace, defense, automotive, food and beverage, packaging, healthcare, construction — and using each stage not just to generate leads, but to fundamentally shift how manufacturers think about automation and our role in it. The 2026 calendar includes Automate, IMTS, Fabtech, Pack Expo, Modex, Shot Show, a Summer Open House, and multiple strategic activations — each with a distinct creative brief and experience design.

What you'll do
Define Our Experiential Strategy and Event Portfolio

You’ll decide which shows we compete in and why, set tier structures based on strategic intent and commercial goals, and build annual calendars that align to our vision of being America’s premiere robot exhibitor. You’ll challenge assumptions, prioritize ruthlessly, and ensure we’re playing to win where it matters most.

Conceive and Direct Brand Experiences That Break Category Norms

You’ll lead creative ideation — guerilla activations, immersive booth design, convention center takeovers, customer summits, product reveals — that communicate our Physical AI vision and create moments people actually remember. You’ll partner with creative, product, and leadership to ensure every experience tells a coherent story and reflects our values.

Build Scalable Experiential Systems and Playbooks

You’ll develop repeatable frameworks for designing, building, and executing events: modular experience kits, staffing models, logistics and transport standard operating procedures, demo protocols, and vendor management systems. These systems enable us to scale quality and consistency across a growing portfolio without losing the creative spark.

Lead Cross-Functional Creative and Commercial Planning

You’ll run kickoff meetings that align sales, applications engineering, product, and leadership on experience goals, creative direction, and commercial targets. You’ll manage dependencies, solve problems, and run post-event retrospectives that feed learning back into the next iteration.

Define and Own Experiential KPIs and Attribution

You’ll work with sales ops to build real-time dashboards that track what matters: audience quality and engagement depth, net new contacts, MQL and SQL conversion, deals sourced, pipeline value, revenue attribution, and return on marketing investment. You’ll be able to show exactly how our experiences drive growth.

Manage and Evolve Vendor and Agency Partnerships

You’ll cultivate relationships with booth builders, AV providers, experiential agencies, logistics partners, and show organizers. You’ll evaluate and recommend new partners as our ambitions grow, negotiate contracts that align to our vision and budget, and hold partners accountable to our creative standards.

Drive Brand Experience Innovation Across the Full Portfolio

You’ll create partnership playbooks with sales and marketing that define how co-branded activations work, ensure consistent quality when partners showcase our robots, and establish standards that protect our brand. You’ll develop risk management frameworks for common event challenges — demo malfunctions, shipping delays, last-minute scope changes — so we’re never caught flat-footed.

What you'll bring

• 7–10+ years of experience in experiential marketing, brand activation, or event strategy, with at least 3 years in a leadership role owning a multi-event or multi-activation program.

• Demonstrated experience scaling an experiential program: growing from a handful of activations to a full annual calendar with tiered investment, creative consistency, and measurable business impact.

• Deep expertise in event operations and logistics: booth design and build, freight management, union labor rules, show floor operations, and the ability to translate creative vision into operational reality.

• Strong creative sensibility combined with commercial rigor: you think like a designer but speak the language of ROI, attribution, and revenue.

• Proven ability to manage complex cross-functional programs involving sales, engineering, product, creative, and executive stakeholders.

• Experience building event operations systems from scratch or significantly elevating an existing program with playbooks, templates, and repeatable frameworks.

• Strong vendor management skills and experience negotiating with show organizers, booth fabricators, experiential agencies, and logistics providers.

• Track record of conceiving and executing brand experiences that break category norms and drive measurable business results.

Nice to haves

• Experience in industrial robotics, automation, manufacturing technology, or hardware companies.

• Familiarity with HubSpot CRM and event-to-pipeline attribution workflows.

• Background in project management methodologies or Agile approaches.

• Experience owning or producing customer summits, product launches, or proprietary brand events.

• Based in or near New York, or open to hybrid work with a trade show travel schedule.

Compensation and Benefits

The salary range for this role is $150,000-$175,000, depending on experience. Base salary is just one part of overall compensation at Standard Bots. All full-time employees are eligible for employee stock options. We also offer a package of benefits including paid time off, medical/dental/vision insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, and 401(k).