Sr. Activation Manager

Sr. Activation Manager

This role sits on our largest business unit — a portfolio of major beer and beverage brands with multiple client stakeholders, separate budgets, and a constant flow of programs in market. A lot of it is sports. A lot of it is festivals. All of it moves fast. The Sr. Activation Manager is the day-to-day engine of that portfolio. Working under Director and SVP leadership, you keep a large number of programs moving at once, stay on top of every detail, and make sure each one is delivered to a high standard. The role is intentionally versatile. On some programs you are the primary client contact, owning the relationship and leading all communication. On others you operate as a dedicated producer, taking full ownership of logistics, vendors, and on-site delivery. In both modes you own the outcome from planning through closeout. This is as much about people as execution. You are the face of Cogent on the client’s day-to-day team — someone clients enjoy working with and want to spend time with. You bring energy and cultural awareness to every interaction. Travel is required (primarily West Coast).

Responsibilities

Program Execution

• Own end-to-end execution on a high volume of concurrent programs, from approved brief through operational post-event recap.
• Keep a clear, organized view of every program in flight — what’s live, what’s next, what needs attention.
• Confirm brief completeness and flag gaps to leadership before the internal process begins.
• Deliver complete operational recap data for the Account team to build into client-facing reports.

Client Communication & Relationships

• Serve as primary day-to-day contact on assigned programs, owning communication, status, and the client’s confidence in the work.
• Manage multiple client stakeholders with individual budgets and priorities, keeping each informed and aligned.
• Build genuine relationships that go beyond the work — staying in touch and joining leadership in client hospitality such as dinners, events, and activities.
• Bring cultural context to client conversations: what’s happening in the markets and moments their brands play in, and why it matters to them.
• Spot opportunities for new programs during day-to-day client interactions and bring them to leadership.

Sports & Sponsorship Context

• Understand the environments this portfolio lives in — pro and college sports, tailgates, festivals, and on-premise — and how a sponsorship actually works inside them.
• You do not need to be the resident sports expert; specialists on the team carry that.
• You do need to know how a brand shows up at a game, what a property delivers, and what makes an activation land in that setting.

Problem Solving

• Anticipate issues before they surface and come with solutions, not just flags.
• Make sound real-time decisions on-site and in market, and know when to escalate.

Production & Operations

• Build and manage production timelines, activation guides, staffing plans, and run of show documents as the single source of truth.
• Manage vendor and logistics coordination on assigned programs.
• Serve as on-site production lead when assigned in a producer capacity — setup, staffing, and strike.

Budget Development & Financial Tracking

• Build program budgets in partnership with the Account team.
• Track actuals, monitor hours burn, and flag expected overages to Operations proactively.

Team Mentorship

• Support the development of Activation Managers on shared programs — sharing knowledge, setting the example, and helping less experienced teammates grow.

Work with AI

• Use AI tools in day-to-day work to move faster on the volume — documentation, recap assembly, timelines, first-pass budgets.
• Apply your own judgment as the final filter. AI handles volume. You handle meaning.

Qualifications

• 4–7 years in experiential marketing, field marketing, or live events.

Required Skills

• Proven ability to manage a high volume of programs at once — organized, prioritizing under pressure, keeping every detail on track.
• Experience serving as a primary client contact on field marketing or regional programs.
• A personality clients gravitate toward — you build real relationships and make clients feel like part of the team.
• Tapped into culture, especially sports, music, and lifestyle, and able to bring that into client conversations naturally.
• Working understanding of sports sponsorship and how brands activate around it.
• Comfort operating in both a client-facing and a producer capacity at a senior level, with the same accountability in either mode.
• Strong production and logistics fluency — activation guides, run of show, staffing plans, vendor coordination, on-site execution.
• Budget literacy — you can build a program estimate, track actual

About the Company

Cogent is an independent culture agency that earns category-defining brands a place in the moments and communities that matter. Now in our fifteenth year, we bring brands into the real world through brand experiences, consumer activations, on-premise and field marketing, creator programs, and branded content across music, sports, and lifestyle consumer communities. We execute 200+ programs annually across 50+ markets. Culture lives in the real world, and social is where it travels: the moments worth sharing are the ones that meant something first. We create those moments, experiences, and content…then make them impossible to ignore. We are culture seekers, blending ongoing research and on-the-ground market intelligence to place brands in the moments they belong in. We are a lean, entrepreneurial team that moves fast, builds with intention, and holds a high bar for the work.