CEO - US Heat Pump Summit

Who We Are

The U.S. Heat Pump Summit is the only trade show in America solely focused on helping HVAC contractors improve their businesses by starting or expanding their work in heat pumps. Having hosted two successful ~350 person events in its first year of existence, we have proven a need for supporting HVAC contractors’ switch to heat pump technology and now are looking for the right leader to grow this business to its full potential.

www.heatpumpsummit.us

Who We Are Looking For

Great events are the in person gathering of a focused community. We are looking for someone with experience creating a community of people both online and in person.

To continue growing from the Summit’s startup stage, this person likely has significant online marketing experience with scrappy approaches relevant to getting the U.S. Heat Pump Summit’s future events seen widely across the industry. This primarily includes Linkedin and Facebook organic posts, podcasts, training events, and into contractor’s inboxes. Working face to face networks, this person will create significant partnerships with industry leading manufacturers, training organizations, and contractors to promote the Summit through trusted personal networks and newsletter channels that are not for sale.

Going beyond promotion tactics, this person will bring a contagious optimistic personality to the mission of creating comfortable, healthy, affordable homes and commercial buildings. Through their work on the Summit, they’ll ensure contractors create those spaces with leading practices and ultimately make outsized earnings on their work due to the Summit’s training and community knowledge.

This role will report to the board and founder, who will transition to a board member role.

Key Responsibilities

• Be the leader and face of the US Heat Pump Summit

• Execute future US Heat Pump Summits and establish additional complementary business models over time

• Create a lean full time and flexible resource team with a unique blend of modern online marketing skills, world class trade show execution experience, and veteran HVAC industry knowledge to host industry leading events

1st year milestones

• Execute the next Summit roughly on a March/April 2026 timeline

• Grow and formalize the existing coalition of industry veterans, manufacturers, educators, and etc. for the Summit to ensure it is an event from the community for the community

• Establish and execute a consistent and thorough in person and online marketing plan that focuses on value driven marketing, where each touch point is typically some type of education on heat pumps

• With assistance from the founder, close financing for a 2-3 year runway to establish the business

• Hire 1-3 full time positions and engage several variable capacity contractors across key needs

• Further diligence a complimentary year round type of community known as a Peer Leadership Group similar to Young Presidents’ Organization or Hampton (joinhampton.com)

Qualifications

• A passion for creating community and bringing people together online and in person. A personality that brings people more energy than they came to the meeting with!

• Experience in an open ended founder type role. This is a significantly autonomous role with the fate of the organization in your hands.

• A strong, demonstrated interest in clean technology like heat pumps, solar, wind, battery storage, home efficiency, high performance buildings, etc.

• Heat pump knowledge is strongly preferred but not required, however this person is expected to increase their knowledge of heat pumps to be able to have generally detailed conversations with HVAC contractors about their challenges.

• Modern email and online copywriting skills to execute and iterate the Summit’s light but informative communication style across email, website, newsletter, and as a guest on podcasts/etc

• Experience hiring and managing across functional roles ideally including sponsorship sales, trade show planning, marketing, content experts, etc.

• A servant leadership style that understands the Summit only wins when contractors out in the field with customers win in an honest and ethical way

• Exceptional eye for detail - you will be the person ultimately responsible for a large event’s organization and success

Nice to Have

• A scrappy streak - what have you accomplished with limited resources and tenacious methods?

• Proven interest or experience in the HVAC industry or related skilled trades

• An existing network in the HVAC industry

• Experience in a technical field with a solid understanding of physics fundamentals and building construction fundamentals

• Experience with analytical tracking of online marketing efforts, creating a more rigorous environment of data driven decision making in Summit promotion efforts

The Bigger Picture

The U.S. is at an inflection point to join the rest of the world in using heat pumps for heating and cooling in a majority of buildings. This business is positioned exceptionally well with early product market fit and the best companies in the space as partners. This position’s objective is to cement the Summit’s role in aiding this transition and becoming the leading HVAC trade show in the industry.

Established trade shows have profit margins similar to SaaS software companies, and shows in the skilled trades are extremely durable properties. Additionally, this Summit serves as the foundation for expanding to year round offerings serving contracting firm owners in HVAC and other skilled trades with business knowledge.

The U.S. Heat Pump Summit is a bootstrapped startup organization whose founder is an experienced clean-tech software product manager. The business has been cash flow positive, though its next stage of growth will be enabled by fundraising from a coalition of different parties across HVAC and clean tech. This process is underway and this role will likely assist with closing that fundraising.

Why Join

This position is an incredibly rare opportunity to step into an early stage business which has found product market fit, has been cash flow positive, but that hasn’t yet scaled to meet the size of the opportunity. Compensation will be a mix of cash and equity. Equity portion will be significant in the double digit percentage range and will have substantial upside given the early stage of this business, the size of the HVAC industry, and the size of need for more effective, modern events that transform contractors’ businesses with heat pumps.