Speakers Bureau Manager

ABOUT REPRESENT JUSTICE

Represent Justice is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that turns stories into action to change the justice system, while building the capacity of system-impacted communities.

In today’s cultural landscape, personal narratives of lived experience remain one of the single most powerful tools for inspiring empathy and mobilizing people to action. Legal system reform faces complex new challenges, as decades of hard-won progress are at risk. Politicized “tough on crime” rhetoric, mass detention, and the overuse of prosecution are fueling media and political discourse that misrepresents and silences system-impacted voices. In this climate, Represent Justice is empowering a growing ecosystem of system-impacted storytellers to engage communities and inspire collective action toward a safer and more just future. We build public demand for a fair legal system while supporting community healing and transformation.

Our work is carried out through three central storytelling initiatives that operate together to build, activate, and

sustain the narrative power of system-impacted individuals and communities:

• Ambassador Program: Equips system-impacted leaders with personal storytelling and advocacy skills to strategically share their stories through film.
• Film & Series Impact Campaigns: Sparks action through national and grassroots campaigns that use first-person storytelling to mobilize audiences across the country.
• Speakers Bureau: Leverages an extensive network of advocacy and community partners to provide ongoing paid opportunities for system-impacted storytellers.

Through this growing narrative infrastructure, Represent Justice equips system-impacted storytellers with the tools, knowledge, confidence, and platforms to strategically reach the right audiences — at the right time, in the right places — with firsthand stories that inspire people to act.

THE POSITION

The Speakers Bureau Manager will lead a mission-driven platform that represents emerging system-impacted leaders, artists, and advocates, many of whom are just starting their speaking careers and seeking structured support to grow their public speaking skills and influence.

Now entering its second full year, the Represent Justice Speakers Bureau is building on a successful first phase that generated over $100,000 in speaking fees and booked 35% of the speakers on our roster. This next chapter is about strengthening its foundation, deepening impact, expanding partnerships, and refining a model that is redefining what equity-centered representation looks like in the speaking world.

This is not a traditional sales role — it’s an entrepreneurial, program design position that requires both creativity and operational excellence. The person in this role will create meaningful experiences, partnerships, speaker training opportunities, and revenue pathways from limited starting points, bringing people, ideas, and opportunities together to amplify narrative power and build sustainable income opportunities for the system-impacted leaders represented in our Bureau.

This is a uniquely challenging and rewarding moment to steward the Represent Justice Speakers Bureau. In today’s economic and political climate, traditional hosts and institutions may have fewer discretionary resources for programming — yet the hunger for authentic, justice-centered stories is seemingly stronger than ever.

The ideal candidate will be a creative problem-solver and relationship-builder who can reimagine what partnerships and strategic pitches look like, sustain momentum through obstacles, and find new pathways to connect our ambassadors to paid speaking opportunities and appearances as well as connect new audiences with the powerful voices on our Speakers Bureau. This role requires the ability to rapidly shift between high-level strategy, creative program development, and event logistics, often within the same day. Success depends on managing multiple priorities simultaneously — moving from crafting strategic pitches, to designing speaker trainings, to troubleshooting event logistics at a moment’s notice.

The person in this position must be comfortable speaking to and working with: meeting planners and executives from Fortune 500 companies, national or professional conferences, trade associations, colleges, non-profits, NGOs and international organizations.

We recognize that candidates may come from a range of media, non-profit, talent management, or cultural institutions, and the organization is receptive to exploring a diverse slate of experiences and backgrounds. This being said, the ideal candidate will have: experience working within social justice organizations or movements (particularly with system-impacted communities); experience with negotiations, talent management and event booking; and a passion about the role storytelling plays in social change. They will also be a skilled trainer capable of coaching and developing emerging speakers as they grow their visibility and strengthen their craft.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Program Strategy

• Operationalize a values-driven speakers bureau model centered in trauma-informed care, pay equity, and transformation.
• Develop creative event formats, co-hosted models, and unconventional partnerships (e.g., festivals, civic forums, community centers, media platforms).
• Oversee systems for pitching, booking, evaluation, and reporting, aligned with Represent Justice’s Results-Based Accountability framework.
• Build scalable systems to support growth, sustainability, and partnership expansion.
• Develop and implement a speaker training model to grow the capacity, visibility, and skillset of emerging system-impacted leaders and speakers.

Outreach & Pitching

• Prospect and engage a broad range of potential hosts, platforms, and partner organizations — including festivals, civic forums, universities, community networks, media platforms, foundations, and corporate social-impact programs.
• Conduct outreach to potential hosts on an ongoing basis, using personalized and creative outreach strategies tailored to each host and speaker’s interests, capacity, and alignment, requiring disciplined time management and the ability to quickly shift between audiences, formats, and communication styles.
• Persist through high volumes of outreach and “no’s,” maintaining momentum and turning rejections into future opportunities.
• Design innovative pitch formats such as bundled engagements (e.g., workshops + screenings + digital activations) that align with host budgets and speaker interests.
• Track outreach data and engagement outcomes in a CRM to inform strategy, monitor conversion rates, and identify trends for future planning.
• Collaborate with communications and development teams to expand visibility of the Speakers Bureau through campaigns, partnerships, and social channels, including the creation and refinement of speaker profiles and pitch materials.

Speaker & Partner Relations

• Onboard, and cultivate relationships with speakers, developing tailored profiles, topics, and materials as needed.
• Serve as a trusted liaison between speakers and hosts, ensuring timely communication, preparation, and care.
• Facilitate speaker coaching, professional development, and referrals to Represent Justice Community Wellness Manager for connections to wellness resources, including mental health support.
• Maintain ongoing dialogue with speakers to align opportunities with their evolving goals and expertise.
• Help prepare speakers for speaking engagements and attend select speaking engagements to provide on-the-ground support and build speaker relationships.

Events Management

• Oversee logistics for all speaking engagements, including travel, contracts, invoicing, and post-event evaluation.
• Creatively negotiate event budgets and honoraria that sustain program quality while meeting speakers and hosts’ financial realities.
• Manage multiple, concurrent events and bookings at various stages of planning, often requiring rapid adjustments and problem-solving.

QUALIFICATIONS & CORE COMPETENCIES

Represent Justice encourages applications from system-impacted individuals who have experienced incarceration.

The ideal candidate is a creative, resilient professional who approaches challenges with curiosity and persistence. They bring 5–7 years of professional experience in skills such as: partner engagement, marketing, event planning & logistics, talent management, or communications, along with deep experience working within social justice movements — ideally with individuals directly impacted by the criminal legal system.

They are a trauma-responsive relationship-builder who can hold space for system-impacted speakers and partners with empathy, care, and clear boundaries. With strong interpersonal skills, they build and sustain trust-based relationships across diverse communities, hosts, and collaborators.

A skilled communicator and strategist, this person excels at pitching and storytelling, tailoring written and verbal communication to a variety of audiences. They are innovative in program design — experimenting with new formats for events, partnerships, and collaborations that reach beyond traditional speaking circuits — and comfortable managing multiple projects at once.

This candidate thrives in environments requiring rapid multitasking, constant context-switching, and balancing strategic planning with day-to-day execution. They have a demonstrated ability to shift between big-picture thinking and detail-oriented logistics under tight timelines.

They are an expert at discussing, documenting, and staying on top of event logistics. They are impact-oriented, defining and tracking success through both measurable outcomes and broader narrative influence. Business acumen and familiarity with scaling social enterprises are a plus.

They are comfortable working independently within a lean team structure, proficient with Google Workspace and CRMs, and able to maintain confidentiality and professionalism at all times.

BENEFITS

Represent Justice offers a comprehensive benefits package, including:

• Remote-first, trauma-responsive workplace culture
• Medical / Dental / Vision coverage for employees and dependents
• Flexible Spending Healthcare & Dependent Care Accounts
• 100% employer-paid supports include:
  • $175/month (2,100/year) HRA contribution to offset out-of-pocket medical expenses and mental health care costs
  • $250/month ($3,000/year) Wellness Stipend
  • $100/month ($1,200/year) Phone & Equipment Stipend
• Quarterly Wellness Days
• Generous vacation time and 12 paid holidays, plus a 5-day winter holiday
• $1,500/year Professional Development Stipend