By Nora Bright, Kimberly Mass

Image by Nicole Todd

When a partner marketer leaves, hiring their replacement can feel like a big lift—it’s a niche role that blends strategy, relationship management, marketing execution, cross-functional coordination, and project management. But it’s also a natural moment to pause, reassess what you need, and shape the role in a way that moves your partner marketing program forward. 

With a little structure—and a little guidance—you can use this transition time to re-scope the role, sharpen expectations, and quickly attract quality candidates who can hit the ground running. 

Let’s get started! 

Step 1. Evaluate the role: What do you want to keep, adjust, or elevate?  

Start by reflecting on the role as it is today and where you see your partner program heading in the future: 

• What’s changed since this role was last open?  
  • Has your partner program matured—more partners, more tiers, higher goals? 
  • Have priorities shifted—different customer focus, new products, new regions, new motions? 
• What worked well? What could work better? 
  • Collaboration: Was there friction between teams when making decisions? Did cross-functional teams slow down or genuinely support the last person? 
  • Capacity: Was there too much (or too little) to do?
  • Support: Was there enough support from a manager or mentor?
• How should your new hire be the same (or different) from your last hire?
  • Were any skills lacking? 
  • What strengths are essential to maintain? 
  • Are there different skills this person might need based on new priorities? 

Step 2. Audit tools and workflows: What systems and processes are in place today—and what needs to be changed or built? 

The seniority and experience you need depends on the current state of your operations. Evaluate your workflows and tools and categorize each as “keep running,” “change,” or “build.” Here is a list to help you get started:

• Intake and prioritization: How work requests come in, get approved, and get scheduled
• Project management cadence: How timelines and stakeholders are managed 
• Partner communications engine: Communication schedule, messaging consistency, and ownership
• Co-marketing workflow: Campaign planning through execution and follow-up 
• Assets and enablement: Where partner-ready materials live and how they’re managed 
• Systems and handoffs: CRM/PRM basics, lead flow, ownership, and data hygiene
• Measurement: What “success” means and how it’s tracked and reported
• Budget and vendors: MDF spend (if any), agencies, tools, and ownership 

Step 3. Decide what level of role you’re hiring for: Operator, strategic lead, or hybrid 

Based on your answers to steps 1 and 2, you should have a clearer picture of the role level you’re hiring for:

• Operator: Ideal when systems are already in place and details just need to be managed. This person is essentially a project manager—driving timelines, managing stakeholders, and keeping work moving. 
• Strategic lead: Best when priorities are unclear and the overall partner marketing program needs rethinking. This person shapes strategy, sets priorities, makes high-level decisions, and drives executive communications. 
• Hybrid: A blend of the two: Best when you only have the ability to hire one person or when your program is in its earlier phases and still evolving. Keep in mind, finding someone who can and wants to do both can be tricky.  

Step 4. Define what success looks like in the first 30, 60, and 90 days 

Now that you’ve outlined the role, the next step is understanding what strong performance looks like in the first few months. A simple 30–60–90 framework can be used to help you set direction and align everyone involved in hiring. For example:   

• 30 days: Get up to speed on the partner program, stakeholders, partners, and current priorities. Clarify goals, success metrics, and “who owns what,” and then create a realistic plan for what will (and won’t) get done. 
• 60 days: Start delivering meaningful work, including 1 or 2 quick wins. 
• 90 days: Turn early wins into repeatable processes. Set a forward-looking roadmap. 

Step 5. Write the job description and interview for what you need 

Once the role is well-defined, writing a clear and compelling job description that attracts the right candidates is much easier. Make sure to include the following: 

• From step 1: Role mission and top priorities 
• From step 2: Build/fix/run expectations 
• From step 3: Role level and required skills (this will also help determine compensation) 
• From step 4: 90-day outcomes  

Having a clear job description also makes it easier to write interview questions. Check out our list of recommended interview questions for partner marketers. 

Ready, set, hire 

When you take the time to define what you really need before you hire, the process becomes smoother, faster, and far more likely to deliver a great outcome. 

2A Recruiting & Staffing has over a decade of experience recruiting for partner marketing roles. We can help scope your open role, calibrate level and compensation, and deliver qualified partner marketing candidates. 

By Kimberly Mass

Image by Jenni Lydell

Event season used to follow the same well-worn script—pick up a water bottle, pocket a stress ball, wander past a demo screen looping in the background. Not bad, just…predictable. Lately, the vibe has shifted. There’s a glow up happening on the event floor: experiences that surprise and booths with enough personality to make you stop mid-stride. 

Engagement is the main attraction 

Whether it’s AWS Partners rolling in giant slides, claw machines, and touchscreen demo quests, or AWS itself setting up hands-on activities ahead of re:Invent (games! dance parties!), the idea is the same—give people something fun to try, and they’ll stick around long enough to talk. 

Customer stories are product launch partners 

Instead of rolling out features with a “ta-da!” and a datasheet, teams—Microsoft included—are pairing announcements with real customer outcomes. It’s relatable, grounded, and a way for attendees to see themselves in the story. The written case studies also serve as follow-up touchpoints after the customer initially shares their stories at the event. Think of it as launching with receipts. 

Luxury swag is having a moment 

At Ignite this year, the Azure team showed up with the kind of gifts that beg for an unboxing video. Limited-edition Labubus. An Azure Cosmos DB LEGO set. Not to be outdone, at re:Invent AWS handed out custom Nikes. Suddenly, walking away with something cool isn’t the exception—it’s the expectation. 

Our take 

The bar is officially higher with smarter swag, immersive moments, and customer proof that does more than fill a slide. 

At 2A, we help teams show up with intention—shaping event experiences with personality and purpose for real people.  

If your 2026 events need a glow up, we’re ready when you are. 

By Erin McCaul, Kimberly Mass

Image by Rachel Adams

If you’ve ever opened your desk drawer debating between a granola bar now, a sandwich in an hour, or dinner out after work, you already understand product demos.  

Sometimes your audience needs just a taste: a 20-second clip that sizzles with product UI animations and new features. Other times, they need the full plate: a five-minute walkthrough showcasing not just how your product works, but why it matters. And occasionally, it’s time to go all out—a keynote-level catered meal, beautifully presented, built to wow analysts, prospects, and partners alike. 

At 2A, we love product demos because they’re flexible. They can be as quick and snackable as trail mix, or as polished and satisfying as the fanciest sit-down dinner. The best part? Demos can be tailored to fit your goals—whether that’s enabling sales teams, standing out in a Gartner submission, or inspiring customers to give your product a try. 

What sets us apart is how we partner with clients. We don’t just execute on a script—we collaborate to understand the product, refine the story, shape the visuals, and make sure the demo delivers the right impact. And because our entire team is in-house, you get efficiency, consistency, and tech-savvy storytelling without the risk of things getting lost in translation. 

Whether you’re hungry for a snack, a meal, or the whole feast, 2A can cook up the demo you need. Yes, chef! 

By Kimberly Mass

Image by Emily Zheng

There it is—the sigh of relief that comes when the last commemorative keychain is handed out, the signage comes down, and the final post-conference survey is sent. Another successful event in the books—and a chance to reflect on what went well and what you’d do differently next time. 

While you’re reflecting, what if you were also laying the groundwork to make the next event easier? Or finding ways to hand off that event to a colleague while you work on something else? Or seamlessly expanding that event across regions or audiences? A turnkey event-in-a-box, if you will. 

2A is here to help! Our event playbooks capture everything an event organizer needs to know to plan your next great event, conference, or meeting. From planning timelines to pre-event activities, and from day-of logistics to post-event follow-up, we document it all in a playbook that’s easy to use and update—taking the stress out of consistently producing great events. 

That’s exactly what we did for a recent client that wanted an event playbook to help kickstart a standardized, easy-to-replicate global event program. Based on findings from the client’s first local event, we developed a playbook that included the following. 

• Detailed event timelines and communication cadences
• Guidelines for choosing planning committee members and event speakers 
• Email templates for invitations, follow-ups, agendas, and post-event surveys
• Guidelines for creating and ordering swag
• Tips for day-of-event logistics like A/V setup and food ordering
• Links to helpful resources
• And much more—all in a user-friendly PowerPoint format 

The result? An intuitive guide that makes it easier for any team member, in any region, to plan and pull off a standout event without starting from scratch. 

Want to make your event planning more efficient, consistent, and scalable? Get in touch! 

By Kimberly Mass

This is a story about cupcakes. Not just any cupcakes—the kind covered with frosting, crowned with sprinkles, and filled to bursting with even more frosting. In this case, the frosting is comedy, the filling is a deep sense of community, and the sprinkles are the spark Alyson Stoner-Rhoades brings to her role as 2A’s operations manager.

Like the first bite of a cupcake—from the side? from the top?—this story could start just about anywhere and still end up somewhere delicious. Let’s eat!

Goodness baked right in

While Alyson grew up cooking for her family, she learned to bake from scratch (croissants and cookies and yes, cupcakes) at her first job at Specialty’s Café and Bakery. She also learned about the food supply chain, sustainable farming, and the joy that comes from sharing quality food carefully made with the wider community.

Alyson’s experience at Specialty’s prepared her for her next position: store manager at Cupcake Royale. There she learned to do, as she put it, “just about everything,” including baking the store’s signature cupcakes. With its focus on sourcing sustainable ingredients, giving back through donation matching, and serving as a community gathering place, Cupcake Royale was a perfect match for Alyson’s growing skills in operations management and community building.

The perfect mix

Following a brief stint with the Seattle Storm where she further flexed her community building muscles (a job she got in part due to her work with the Storm while at Cupcake Royale), Alyson landed at 2A as operations manager. While she makes sure the computers work and the bills get paid, where she really shines is in our company’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) efforts. “I never want people to feel that they’re not supported,” she shared. “Whatever I can do to help people who need a boost is something I’m going to do.”

In the kitsch-en

Baked into everything Alyson does is her wicked sense of humor and love of comedy. From intellectual humor to observational humor to potty humor, she loves it all. In fact, her husband proposed to her right before going to see John Mulaney at the Paramount here in Seattle and a couple of years later surprised her with a signed copy of an album from that tour. “I know it’s cliché, but laughter really is the best medicine,” Alyson said. “There’s magic in humor, and just being silly is beautiful.”

She makes it look like a cakewalk

While there’s also magic and beauty in a perfectly crafted cupcake, it’s the kind of beauty that lasts only for a moment. For Alyson, the operations management work she does at 2A has a much greater and more meaningful impact on her and the team: “Operations just kind of fell into my lap, but it comes naturally to me. I really like helping people and leaving situations better than I found them. People are what make a business, and it gives me real joy to take care of the things they need.”

By Kimberly Mass

Image by Brandon Conboy

What do you get when you combine a passion for opera, an affinity for processes and patterns, and a love for solving complex problems? In 2A’s case, the answer is Madeline Sy, opera aficionado and marketing consultant extraordinaire.

“I’ve loved opera for as long as I can remember,” said Madeline. “While it has a reputation for being inaccessible, it’s actually the opposite—it taps into our instinct to tell stories through music, stories that explore these big emotions that reflect the universal experience of being human.” A case in point: Madeline’s favorite opera, Bluebeard’s Castle by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, is based on a French fairy tale and follows Judith, Bluebeard’s latest wife, as she defies her husband’s request and opens one door after another in a misguided—and ultimately tragic—quest to uncover the castle’s secrets. “At its heart, it’s a story most of us can relate to, about the desire for knowledge even when it isn’t in our best interests. Like any great story, it invites imagination—every time I see it, I connect to something different, and there’s space for everyone who sees the opera to do that.”

Driven by a desire to share their passion with a broader audience, Madeline began volunteering with the Los Angeles Opera’s community engagement programs. There they saw firsthand how the dedication of a small group of people and the power of a solid marketing message could be used in outreach efforts to bring the arts to underserved communities. From there, it was natural step to apply for the Watson Fellowship, a one-year grant that funds independent research and exploration outside the United States, which Madeline used to travel to South Africa, Australia, and Canada. “I wanted to explore how opera—and other artforms in general—can be accessible to people who experience and navigate through the world differently. I started with opera but by the end of the year had expanded to other art forms including a fully accessible music festival and a new opera produced entirely in ASL about deaf culture.”

As they worked to understand these challenges and find workable solutions, Madeline was drawn to HR and the ability of HR professionals to discover patterns, solve complex problems, and improve people’s daily work life. After completing their Master of Human Resource degree at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, Madeline joined bp as a People Advisor, where, in addition to day-to-day HR responsibilities, they worked on special projects that involved building relationships with internal clients and telling stories with data to develop, lead, and launch employee-based initiatives. “While I loved the combination of people and processes that HR involved, I realized I craved collaborating on projects and missed the camaraderie of working with a core team in a creative environment,” Madeline said. “I wanted to find a way to bring everything together.”

Enter 2A stage right: with its focus on building strong relationships and helping clients solve complex marketing challenges—and love of all things creative—2A struck just the right chord with Madeline. And while we don’t always know our aria from our overture, we feel exactly the same!

By Kimberly Mass

Q. What do President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, every Hallmark winter holiday movie, and 2A have in common?

A. We all know the value of a fireside chat when it comes to delivering information in a casual, conversational way that invites listeners to share in the experience.

Whether literal or figurative, the image of a blazing hearth brings to mind feelings of warmth, light, and human connection. When done well, fireside chats deliver all that: they encourage listeners to bask in the warmth of informal conversation, they shed light on interesting or complex topics, and they connect the audience through a collective experience.

But what makes a good fireside chat? Certainly, a cup of cocoa, a cozy blanket, and a furry friend help, but the essential element is the fire itself.

• Start with tinder: Tinder is any easily combustible material used to start a fire. What topic will spark your audience’s interest? What information or knowledge will ignite their curiosity? Once your idea is more than a flicker, it’s time to
• Add some kindling: Kindling helps the fire you just started grow bigger and hotter. Can you find a moderator and speaker whose passion for the topic warms their conversation? Once you do,
• Finish with firewood: Firewood provides the fuel that keeps your fire burning longer. What questions and answers will fan the flames of interest in your audience—and your speakers—to keep them engaged throughout?

Are you ready to pull up a chair and enjoy the warmth? 2A can help!