Director, Advocacy & Influence

Location: Dublin, Ireland (Hybrid or Home-Based)

Position Summary:

The Director, Advocacy & Influence will lead Bentley’s strategy for customer advocacy, influencer engagement, and champion activation across our ecosystem. This role will identify, nurture, and activate authentic voices — from passionate users and customer champions to key external influencers — and turn those relationships into references, speaking opportunities, co-marketing, market credibility, and business impact.

This leader will own Bentley’s advocacy strategy, influencer relationships, and Bentley’s annual Year in Infrastructure (YII) Awards program, helping build a more intentional and scalable engine for customer voice, external influence, and third-party validation.

The right person for this role is highly relationship-oriented, energized by working with users and influencers, and excited to build a modern advocacy function that increases trust, expands visibility, and supports growth.

Responsibilities:

Customer Advocacy Program  

• Identify, nurture, and activate customer champions across Bentley’s ecosystem, from practitioners to executive stakeholders  
• Build pathways for turning engaged users and customers into visible advocates over time  
• Help establish and scale Bentley’s formal customer advocacy and reference program  
• Partner with internal teams to align advocates with the right business, sales, and marketing opportunities
• Build and manage a pipeline of advocacy opportunities, including references, case studies, testimonials, speaking engagements, quotes, media moments, analyst engagement, and peer influence

YII Awards Program 

• Own Bentley’s YII Awards program end to end as a year-round advocacy platform  
• Drive continuous improvement in the program experience, reach, and business impact  
• Extend the life of YII Awards stories, winners, and proof points throughout the year across marketing, communications, and advocacy efforts  
• Ensure YII Awards remains a strong source of customer visibility, market credibility, and high-value content

Influencer, Ambassador & Co-Marketing  

• Help shape Bentley’s influencer and brand ambassador strategy across key audiences and markets  
• Identify and cultivate relationships with external influencers, including industry voices, analysts, and respected market leaders  
• Develop co-marketing opportunities with strategic accounts and partners that elevate shared success stories  
• Support Bentley’s presence across third-party validation channels, including review platforms and other external trust signals 

Cross Functional Activation & Operations 

• Partner closely with the Chief Storyteller and cross-functional stakeholders to surface the right customers, stories, and proof points for broader narrative development  
• Work across content, communications, programs, field, and sales teams to activate customer and influencer voices in ways that support trust, awareness, and go-to-market priorities  
• Create and maintain a centralized repository of advocacy assets, references, and customer stories for use across teams  
• Help define the processes, workflows, tools, and KPIs needed to make advocacy more scalable, measurable, and effective over time

Qualifications:

• 8+ years of experience in customer advocacy, customer marketing, community, influencer, reference, or related programs
• Proven experience leading and managing a small team
• Highly relationship-oriented, high-energy, and genuinely excited about working with users, champions, and external influencers
• Strong instincts for identifying high-potential advocates and turning relationships into meaningful market-facing opportunities
• Experience with customer storytelling, speaking programs, co-marketing, references, influencer engagement, or other forms of external activation  
• Comfortable building programs with structure, process, and measurable outcomes  
• Strong cross-functional instincts and ability to operate effectively in a matrixed organization  
• Curious, proactive, and energized by building programs that create momentum and visibility  
• Experience with B2C-style community, ambassador, loyalty, or influencer programs — and an ability to translate those ideas into a B2B context — is a plus

What We Offer:

• A great Team and culture – please see our colleague video.
• An exciting career as an integral part of a world-leading software company providing solutions for architecture, engineering, and construction - watch this short documentary about how we got our start.
• An attractive salary and benefits package.
• A commitment to inclusion, belonging, and colleague well-being through global initiatives and resource groups.
• A company committed to making a real difference by advancing the world’s infrastructure for a better quality of life, where your contributions help build a more sustainable, connected, and resilient world. Discover our latest user success stories for an insight into our global impact.

About Bentley Systems:

Around the world, infrastructure professionals rely on software from Bentley Systems to help them design, build, and operate better and more resilient infrastructure for transportation, water, energy, cities, and more. Founded in 1984 by engineers for engineers, Bentley is the partner of choice for engineering firms and owner-operators worldwide, with software that spans engineering disciplines, industry sectors, and all phases of the infrastructure lifecycle. Through our digital twin solutions, we help infrastructure professionals unlock the value of their data to transform project delivery and asset performance. 

www.bentley.com 

Equal Opportunity Employer:

Bentley is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and considers for employment all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, gender/gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, marital status, religion/belief, national origin, caste, age, or any other characteristic protected by local law or unrelated to job qualifications.

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