jessica bendell

Convene (www.convene.com) designs and services premium places to work, meet, and host inspiring events. Through strategic partnerships with prominent commercial landlords, Convene operates a network of hospitality driven locations in Class A office buildings across major U.S. cities, with plans to expand globally. Convene has raised $260M in equity funding to date, and has been recognized as a Best Workplace by both Inc. and Fortune magazines and one of America’s 100 Most Promising Companies by Forbes for its vision of bringing lifestyle experiences to the workplace.

* Managed the day-to-day HR needs of the unit including the development and coordination of: performance reviews and compensation process * recruiting, onboarding and hiring * individual development plan process * mentor program * training & development * community building * capacity planning and tracking * resource allocations

* Selected accomplishments: Developed and instituted on-boarding process for all levels of hires, designed interview process, new business lead/pipeline tracking process and a mentor/advisor program, implemented Salesforce which drove lead tracking and increased pipeline visibility, developed new website with design vendors Directly supported the Chief Operating Officer & the six Leadership Team members on many operational facets of the business unit including: Budgeting, Finance & Commercial * Strategy * Human Resources * Marketing and Communications * Executive Assistant to COO and 2 senior executives

In collaboration with the New Fashioned/Certainability team, work with high growth clients (in healthcare IT, health care, high-end flexible office space/real estate, SaaS technology) in managing the passive candidate sourcing of talent for multiple corporate and tech roles. Proactively source passive and active talent through social channels, LinkedIn Boolean searches, ATS systems, referrals AngelList and other sources to find candidates. Levels and function/expertise areas of roles I have worked on include entry-level resources through VP level within HR, communications, corporate operations, corporate development, real estate, customer success, sales, sales operations, engineering and marketing. In addition, I manage operations for Kaleidocent which has included setting up and managing payroll, negotiating workers comp insurance in different states for remote workers, accounts payable and accounts receivable, business development & setting up a CRM, working with accountant to prepare tax documents etc.

Assembled press kits and marketing materials for client accounts -- Built media lists, editorial, and speaking calendars -- Scanned media outlets for client press coverage -- Assisted in marketing activities including press announcements, and securing media and speaking opportunities

* Drove the media relations program, including drafting press releases, media alerts, and product/company backgrounders * Supervised & coached the account interns and junior account team staff on all daily activities * Conducted in-depth research and analysis of clients’ and competitors’ press coverage * Acted as primary counsel on industry trends and competitor announcements * Assisted with the development of public relations plans and programs

* Led client conference calls, account team meetings, and delegated projects * Developed targeted pitches for trade, local, national, business and daily press * Drafted speaking abstracts for industry trade shows on behalf of client executives

* Managed all media briefings, press conference attendees and briefing documents for major industry trade show * Developed coverage summaries and coordinated daily coverage monitoring * Maintained company database with client press coverage and communications documents

Identified, evaluated and implemented new strategy options. Designed, implemented and managed Knowledge Management system as well as a CRM system which improved team efficiency. Oversaw day-to-day activities such as program planning, marketing, program budgeting, pricing and proposal process. Responsible for recruitment of program temporary staff (roughly 30-35 part-time subcontracted staff each year), implementation of performance review process and onboarding. Promoted summer camp through various social media and traditional media channels and as a result, all spots were reserved at the earliest point in time in 24 year history of the camp.

Working with the company founder, helped to grow business from serving around 150 international students to just under 400 students per year; also recruited and managed a team of three full time program coordinators. Built the company’s main assets from scratch: 1). relationships with university professors - and as a result over 25 different professors taught our international students on a regular basis; 2). relationships with approximately 15 Boston area High Schools including top-performers such as Roxbury Latin, Hingham HS, Newton South - as a result, all of these schools welcomed our international students for immersive visits. I was the first hire and was responsible for the design and development of our educational and cultural programs, vendor management, recruitment of temporary staff to deliver the programs, proposal development and pricing, the development of new business offerings, light bookkeeping utilizing QuickBooks and social media promotion (Facebook).

Manage payroll, accounts payable and other month-end reporting tasks (using Quickbooks, ADP, Expensify and Google Sheets) as well as year-end W2 and 1099 filing. Streamlined process for communicating with state tax agencies to reconcile payroll and unemployment data which resulted in more accurate data and communications with all state agencies and thus saving Bocoup on taxes. Designed and executed lead generation activities (e.g. developing targeted lists, email marketing, social media, drafting press releases and researching publication targets), responsible for keeping data accurate and analyzing data in CRM (Pipedrive) and evaluating results of marketing initiatives. As a result, Bocoup’s “cold” lead pipeline increased within 3 months and over 3,000 new contacts were subscribed to Mailchimp lists.