Vice President of New Business - Experiential Marketing

Vice President of New Business — Experiential Marketing

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Company: 3RD AVE

Employment Type: Full-Time

Compensation: Salary + Commission

The Opportunity

3RD AVE is seeking an experienced Vice President of New Business — Experiential Marketing to lead direct-to-brand business development and help expand our experiential marketing portfolio.

This position will focus on developing relationships directly with brands, identifying new opportunities, and helping shape experiential programs from initial conversation through strategy, scope, budget, and award.

The ideal candidate brings a strong existing network of brand-side relationships, deep knowledge of experiential marketing, and the ability to move comfortably between business development, strategy, campaign development, and production realities.

This is a senior growth position with significant responsibility for developing new accounts and building long‑term client relationships.

What You'll Do

• Develop and maintain relationships directly with brand-side marketing teams and decision-makers.
• Generate and manage a pipeline of new experiential marketing opportunities.
• Leverage an established network of brand contacts to introduce 3RD AVE to new clients and opportunities.
• Identify opportunities across experiential campaigns, brand activations, sponsorships, product launches, pop‑ups, live events, mobile tours, fan experiences, and other brand experiences.
• Lead initial client conversations to understand objectives, audiences, budgets, timelines, and desired outcomes.
• Help develop experiential strategies and campaign approaches based on client objectives.
• Lead and participate in pitches, presentations, RFP responses, and new‑business meetings.
• Work with internal teams to develop concepts, scopes, budgets, proposals, and presentations.
• Develop and review preliminary estimates and production budgets.
• Understand the relationship between creative ambition, production feasibility, schedule, budget, and profitability.
• Identify opportunities to incorporate 3RD AVE's broader capabilities, including fabrication, production, and interactive technology, when appropriate.
• Collaborate with internal creative, production, fabrication, technology, and project management teams throughout the pursuit process.
• Negotiate scopes, budgets, and commercial terms with prospective clients.
• Transition awarded programs effectively into internal production and project teams.
• Develop new accounts into recurring and long‑term client relationships.
• Maintain visibility into pipeline, probability, projected revenue, timing, and account growth.
• Work with company leadership to identify new markets, clients, partnerships, and opportunities for growth.
  

What We're Looking For

• 10+ years of experience in experiential marketing, brand activations, live events, sponsorship marketing, or related agency environments.
• Demonstrated success developing and winning business directly from brands.
• A strong existing network of brand-side marketing contacts and decision-makers.
• Experience developing experiential campaigns from initial brief through strategy, concept, budgeting, pitch, and execution.
• Strong understanding of experiential marketing strategy and campaign development.
• Experience building and reviewing experiential budgets and estimates.
• Working knowledge of production, fabrication, technology, logistics, labor, permitting, and other components involved in delivering physical experiences.
• Strong understanding of project economics, including budgets, fees, margins, contingencies, and profitability.
• Experience responding to RFPs and leading competitive pitches.
• Strong presentation, communication, and negotiation skills.
• Ability to communicate effectively with both senior brand executives and internal creative/production teams.
• Ability to independently originate opportunities rather than relying exclusively on inbound leads.
• Track record of developing long‑term accounts rather than solely transactional project work.
• Strong understanding of the experiential marketing landscape and the agencies, vendors, and production partners operating within it.
  

The Ideal Candidate

You are equally comfortable opening the door, developing the opportunity, and helping build the solution.

You understand how brands buy experiential marketing and know how to navigate the process from an initial relationship or brief through strategy, budgeting, pitching, negotiation, and award.

You also understand how experiential work actually gets produced.

You can look at an idea and begin identifying the scope, resources, budget, timeline, and partners required to make it happen. You don't need to personally manage every detail of execution, but you need enough production and estimating experience to build opportunities that can successfully transition from pitch to production.

Most importantly, you already have meaningful relationships within the brand community and a demonstrated ability to turn those relationships into opportunities and long‑term accounts.

About 3RD AVE

3RD AVE is a Los Angeles-based experiential company specializing in the development and execution of physical brand experiences.

Our capabilities span experiential marketing, creative development, production, custom fabrication, and interactive technology, allowing our teams to support projects from early concept development through execution.

We work across a wide range of experiential programs and collaborate with brands, agencies, and creative partners to bring ambitious ideas into the physical world.