JOIN TEDxZurich TEAM
open positions
Since 2010, TEDxZurich has been a platform for spreading ideas that matter — locally and globally. For the past 15 years, we’ve brought people together to celebrate curiosity, spark conversations, and inspire action through independently organized TEDx events. Guided by the core values of TED — open-mindedness, inclusion, truth, generosity, and a deep belief in the power of ideas — we’ve built a community of changemakers, thinkers, doers, and dreamers.
Today, TEDxZurich is entering an exciting phase of renewal. We’re redefining our activities, reshaping our strategy, and rebuilding the organization for its next chapter. This is your opportunity to be part of that transformation — and help lead it.
What’s in it for you?
- Join a global movement and contribute to a meaningful mission
- Collaborate with passionate, purpose-driven individuals
- Develop your leadership, strategic, and operational skills
- Expand your network and gain visibility in Zurich’s innovation and creative community
- Attend and help shape all TEDxZurich events — and make them unforgettable
As Speaker Coach Lead, you are responsible for ensuring the quality, consistency, and integrity of the speaker coaching process at TEDxZurich. In close collaboration with the Head Curator, you safeguard the journey from idea development to stage delivery and help ensure that every talk meets TEDx standards of clarity, credibility, and impact. You bring together analytical rigor and empathetic coaching: strengthening ideas, sharpening narratives, and enabling speakers to deliver with confidence and authenticity.
Beyond supporting the speaker coaches, you help externalize the TEDx speaker coaching approach as a structured and transferable methodology, contributing to its positioning as a distinctive asset within TEDxZurich’s broader ecosystem and its application in selected partnership and community engagements.
Your responsibilities
- Coordinate and lead a sub-team of up to four speaker coaches, ensuring alignment on coaching standards, speaker preparation guidelines, and execution in line with the overall curatorial direction.
- Lead internal coach training and support the planning and delivery of coaching and rehearsal sessions.
- Act as the main coordination and escalation point within the coaching process, ensuring clear expectations, timelines, speaker progress, key deliverables, and alignment on rehearsal and curation schedules.
- Provide structured, candid, and constructive feedback on content, storytelling, and delivery, and support speaker coaches in sourcing credible references.
- Proactively identify factual, ethical, or content-related risks (including sensitive claims, data, statistics, and references) and escalate them early to the Head Curator to ensure alignment with TEDx standards.
- Support end-to-end speaker management on event day, including coordination, check-ins, readiness, backstage flow, live programme execution with technical crews, and post-event follow-up and documentation for continuous improvement.Â
- Package the TEDx speaker journey – from idea discovery to stage delivery – into a structured, replicable format that serves as a distinctive asset in partnerships and community engagements.
- Develop and deliver external workshops based on this methodology, ensuring high-quality application of the TEDx speaker coaching approach in community contexts.
Are you a perfect fit?
- You are fluent in English; German is a plus.
- You have experience in coaching, storytelling, public speaking, journalism, academia, media, or a related field.
- You combine intellectual rigor with empathy and strong listening skills.
- You bring exceptional attention to detail, along with strong writing, editing, and proofreading skills.
- You are confident in giving honest feedback while creating psychological safety.
- You care deeply about clarity, evidence, and the responsible spread of ideas.
- You have ideally experience of coordinating a small team.Â
- You are entrepreneurial in mindset and excited to develop the Speaker Coaching function as a visible asset of TEDxZurich.
- You are passionate about TED’s mission and believe in the power of well-crafted ideas to shift perspectives.
Commitment
This is a volunteer role, requiring an average of 10 hours per week, spread out evenly throughout the year. You will need consistency, ownership, and a strong sense of responsibility for the audience journey.
Ready to co-create the next chapter?
If this role resonates with you, please send your CV along with a short paragraph explaining why you’re interested and what TEDx means to you to info@tedxzurich.com. Only applications submitted via email will be considered. This role is available immediately.Â
As Speaker Coach, you are the guardian of talk quality, speaker readiness, and content integrity. Working closely with the Speaker Coach Lead, you guide selected speakers from idea refinement to stage performance. You combine intellectual rigor with empathy: challenging ideas constructively, strengthening clarity and narrative, and ensuring every talk meets TEDx standards of substance, credibility, and impact.
Beyond preparing speakers for TEDxZurich events as your main task, you support the consistent application of a structured speaker coaching methodology in selected community and partnership engagements. In doing so, you help deliver Speaker Coaching as a distinctive asset of TEDxZurich beyond the core event context.
Your responsibilities
- Guide speakers through the full preparation journey – from idea sharpening and narrative development to stage presence and delivery.Â
- Lead and facilitate internal speaker training & rehearsal sessions aligned with official TEDx speaker preparation guidelines.
- Provide structured, candid, and constructive feedback on content, storytelling, and delivery, and support speakers in sourcing credible references.
- Proactively identify factual, ethical, or content-related risks (including sensitive claims, data, statistics, and references) and escalate them early to the Speaker Coach Lead to ensure alignment with TEDx standards.
- Collaborate closely with the Curator and Event Team to ensure talks are stage-ready and aligned with the overall event narrative.
- Deliver external workshops based on the TEDx speaker coaching methodology, translating the internal process into a high-quality, value-adding community offering.
Are you a perfect fit?
- You are fluent in English; German is a plus.
- You have experience in coaching, storytelling, public speaking, journalism, academia, media, or a related field.
- You combine intellectual rigor with empathy and strong listening skills.
- You are confident in giving honest feedback while creating psychological safety.
- You care deeply about clarity, evidence, and the responsible spread of ideas.
- You are structured and reliable, able to manage multiple speakers in parallel.
- You are passionate about TED’s mission and believe in the power of well-crafted ideas to shift perspectives.
Commitment
This is a volunteer role, requiring an average of 10 hours per week, spread out evenly throughout the year. You will need consistency, ownership, and a strong sense of responsibility for the audience journey.
Ready to co-create the next chapter?
If this role resonates with you, please send your CV along with a short paragraph explaining why you’re interested and what TEDx means to you to info@tedxzurich.com. Only applications submitted via email will be considered. This role is available immediately.Â
As Audience Experience Liaison, you will be the guardian of how TEDxZurich is experienced from the moment guests step onsite. Working closely with the Curator, you will coordinate, develop and deliver the Audience Experience across the entire event journey. This role is for a thoughtful doer: someone who combines creativity and structure to turn the TEDxZurich concept into a unique, inclusive and coherent experience for our audience.
You will support the Curator in shaping the Audience Experience vision and ensure it is consistently translated into concrete elements across all departments. From design and accessibility to activities and volunteers, you will connect the dots by asking the right questions, ensuring the audience experience is intentional and flawlessly delivered.
Your responsibilities
- Coordination & delivery of Audience Experience by working hand in hand with the Curator to support the development of the overall Audience Experience concept and take ownership of its coordination and delivery. Ensure the vision is clearly understood and implemented throughout the planning and execution of the event.
- Cross-departmental support: challenging all departments (catering, production, design, partnerships, volunteers, etc.) to embed the Audience Experience perspective into their work, ensuring consistency with the overarching concept.
- Partnerships team support when activities or booths are involved, ensuring any partner activations align with the overall concept and the TEDx ethos.
- Lead the development and host the delivery of audience-facing activities, ensuring they are engaging and aligned with the overall narrative of the event.
- Ensure the inclusion of accessibility and diversity in each aspect of the audience experience.
- Coordinate AE leads who are focused on design and location-related elements. Ensure these areas work together seamlessly to create an inclusive, welcoming, and meaningful experience for all attendees.
- Define volunteer expectations & delivery supporting the Audience Experience. Brief, guide and support them so they understand their role in shaping how the audience feels and moves through the event, and ensure smooth delivery on the day.
Are you a perfect fit?
- You are fluent in English; German is a plus.
- You have experience in the production and delivery of events.
- You have experience or a strong interest in event experience, hospitality, cultural projects, service design and community-building.
- You are empathetic and audience-centric, with for how spaces and people come together.
- You are organised and reliable, able to coordinate multiple departments while keeping the overall direction in mind.
- You are proactive and collaborative when working closely with a Curator and cross-functional teams.
- You balance creativity with execution.
- You are passionate about TED’s mission and believe in the power of ideas and experiences to change perspectives.
Commitment
This is a volunteer role, requiring an average of 10 hours per week, with intensity peaking in the months leading up to the event and on the event days themselves. You will need consistency, ownership, and a strong sense of responsibility for the audience journey.
Ready to co-create the next chapter?
If this role resonates with you, please send your CV along with a short paragraph explaining why you’re interested and what TEDx means to you to info@tedxzurich.com. Only applications submitted via email will be considered.
Got Ideas Worth Changing? We Need YOU.
We’re TEDxZurich, and we’re always looking for passionate individuals to join our team. Maybe you didn’t see the perfect role listed, but your skills and enthusiasm could be just what we need. Whether you’re a social media whiz, a design guru, a master of logistics, or simply have a burning desire to make a difference, we want to hear from you.
TEDxZurich is a volunteer-driven organisation, and we believe that everyone has something unique to contribute. So, tell us your story. Show us your passion. Let’s create something extraordinary together.
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join us as
a volunteer!
Get hands-on experience and contribute to TEDZurich as a volunteer. Help create an unforgettable event, connect with like-minded individuals, and be part of something truly special. Your enthusiasm and support are key!
