General Manager

About this role

General Manager

Full Time

Nov 9

Reports to: GRIDLIFE founder | Location: Hybrid, Chicago or Los Angeles | Travel: on site at every production

Welcome to the GRID.

We are GRIDLIFE - Pioneers of the Music / Motorsport Festival.

GRIDLIFE brings music, grassroots motorsports, and culture together at some of North America’s greatest racetracks, with our community (70% under 35) and attendee experience at the heart of everything we do.

GRIDLIFE was founded in 2014 with the first-ever GRIDLIFE Midwest Festival at GingerMan Raceway in South Haven, MI, and has expanded to a national touring festival series with eight productions scheduled for 2027. Season attendance has more than tripled in five years, from about 32,000 in 2021 to more than 100,000 in 2026. The Midwest Festival sold out, and attendance grew 60% at Circuit Legends and 51% at the season-ending Laguna Festival.

In 2026, GRIDLIFE joined F=ma Group, a unified enthusiast platform that brings together the best in live events, content production, storytelling, brand activation, and media, alongside RACER, ID Agency, and 321 Action Action. And we’re still adding to that list.

GRIDLIFE has grown quickly, and our operating structure and financial discipline now need to match that growth. We plan to grow the calendar to 15 to 20 events across North America, and we want a leader who is already thinking about how to scale. We are looking for a General Manager to lead our Events, Marketing, and Partnerships teams, deliver the financial plan, and build the management structure and culture for the next era of GRIDLIFE. This is a full-time, year-round senior leadership role with real authority and clear accountability. We want a sharp operator who hits the number and is great company on a festival weekend. If you want to run a business that a passionate community shows up for, weekend after weekend, we want to talk to you.

Role

You’ll report to GRIDLIFE’s founder. The founder leads brand, creative vision, and community, is ultimately responsible for GRIDLIFE and its results, and directly leads our Creative and Motorsports groups, including their budgets. You lead our Marketing, Events, and Partnerships groups and are accountable to the founder for their results. Each of your three department leaders owns their own budget and P&L, and you’ll hold them to clear plans, budgets, and responsibilities. You’ll build the team and give people the resources and direction to deliver from the first idea through the first lap to the final load-out.

The role carries the authority to match its accountability. You build the annual plan and budget for your groups with your department leaders and review them with the founder, who secures approval from the F=ma Group CEO and the F=ma Board. Within the approved plan and budget for your groups and for event delivery, you control spending, staffing, vendor commitments, event scope, and commercial terms for tickets, camping, merchandise, and vendors. Nothing in those areas is committed outside the approved plan without your approval.

Responsibilities

• Be accountable to the founder for the financial performance of your three groups: credible budgets, fan revenue, event cost, seasonal cash planning, and budget adherence. Have each department leader build and own their budget and P&L, track actuals against budget in real time with the F=ma finance team, hold each leader accountable for results, and act early when an event or a department moves off plan.
• Build a bottom-up budget for every production, with attendance, pricing, and cost assumptions you can defend to the founder, sponsorship assumptions agreed with the F=ma commercial team, and Creative and Motorsports costs agreed with the founder.
• Report early and transparently. When results or assumptions depart from plan, tell the founder and the F=ma Group CEO promptly, with the cause, the financial exposure, and your recommended response. We expect no surprises.
• Lead the heads of Marketing, Events, and Partnerships and manage all Project Managers and Producers, including future additions. Develop the team, make staffing and performance decisions within the approved plan, and work with the founder and the Creative and Motorsports leaders to align all five groups around clear priorities, owners, and milestones. Own the standard operating procedures (SOPs) and use event and operational reviews to keep improving how the company works.
• Carry the culture. Be someone staff, partners, and fans are glad to see in the paddock, and build a team that works hard and enjoys it.
• Own and grow fan revenue with your Marketing and Events leaders: tickets, camping, merchandise, and vendor sales, and the demand generation, advertising and CAC that drive them.
• Own event delivery: operational readiness, safety planning, contingencies, vendor commitments, event scope, and commercial terms for tickets, camping, merchandise, and vendors, all within the approved budget. Manage the season as a portfolio, allocating people, vendors, and cash across eight productions, and deliver every sponsor commitment on time and on budget.
• Build the annual calendar with Motorsports; neither group decides it alone. Test every proposed addition against sound economics and the operating capacity to deliver it. You have the standing to support, reshape, or challenge plans that fall short, and we expect you to use it. Give creative teams the resources and direction to bring new ideas, events, and concepts to life.

First-Year Outcomes

We will assess your first year against these outcomes:

• Within your first 30 days, a 2027 operating budget for your three groups, built or re-baselined with the founder and submitted to the F=ma Group CEO and the F=ma Board for approval, with a fan revenue and event cost plan for each production and a seasonal cash plan.
• Within your first 45 days, a monthly reporting rhythm, built with the F=ma finance team, for the founder and the F=ma Group CEO: actuals against budget, a rolling forecast, and cash position, with each of your three department leaders owning an approved budget and P&L and reporting against it.
• Every 2027 production from your start date delivered safely, with the costs you control at or better than the approved event budget and variances flagged before the money is committed. Full-season fan revenue and event cost at or better than the approved plan.
• Attendee satisfaction and repeat attendance at or above 2026 levels, and every sponsor commitment delivered as sold.
• A financial and operational review of each production completed before the next one, so the lessons are applied.
• A recommended 2028 calendar, built with Motorsports, with event-level economics and a staffing plan, presented before the 2027 season ends.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of relevant experience in live events, hospitality, agency, or venue operations, including senior leadership. You have carried year-round responsibility for live events at real scale, managing multiple productions, competing resource demands, and financial exposure across an entire season. Running a major festival as a year-round business counts. A one-off or fly-in event role does not.
• Proven P&L ownership: building and defending budgets, delivering event-level profitability, planning for seasonal cash needs, and correcting course when results fall short of plan. You have grown revenue and margin and scaled an event calendar, and you can walk us through the numbers.
• A record of candid, early reporting to founders, owners, or boards when results depart from plan, and the judgment to challenge plans with facts and commit fully once a decision is made.
• Strong people leadership and a track record of delivering complex events, productions, or projects across multiple teams and deadlines. You listen well, develop teams, resolve conflict, and turn strategy into action alongside founders and department leads.
• A real feel for community and culture, and for what makes fans come back year after year, with a working understanding of event production, ticketing, sponsorship, vendors, and the attendee experience. A standout record running major festivals or live experiences matters to us. Music industry knowledge is a plus.
• Comfort in loud, busy event environments, mainly race tracks, and the flexibility to work evenings and weekends and travel regularly throughout the season.

Live the GRIDLIFE

• Delivering results matters
• No Flex Zone, Leave Ego behind
• Enthusiastic, passionate, flexible and self-motivated
• Wear several hats & helmets

F=ma Group is an equal opportunity employer.