Antwerp Leadership Programme
You are bursting with ambition and you want to make an actual impact. And at your job you only execute plans someone else came up with. You are not building leadership. You are just logging hours.
We believe ambitious people grow much faster when you give them ownership and trust.
That is exactly why we built the leadership trajectory within the Antwerp Coffee Collective (the driving force behind Antwerp Coffee Week). This is not your average volunteer gig where you stand around handing out flyers in a branded t-shirt. This is a playground where you can make actual impact
JOIN THE TEAM
-
Great track record for your career.
Expansive business network.
Hard leadership skills.
-
You are a problem-solver
Willpower to figure it out.
You have guts.
You take ownership.
You want to work in an ambitious team
OUR MISSION
〰️
OUR MISSION 〰️
Claiming our title as the coffee capital of the world with a yearly city wide coffee festival.
Driving real economic growth for local entrepreneurs.
Growing every single player in the coffee chain.
Making people aware about good quality coffee
Building an open connected community
Create a platform for education.
Creating a self-sustainable organization where volunteers can receive compensation for their hard work.
What we are actually building (and why we need you)
Antwerp has the biggest coffee-port in the world, importing and exporting massive amounts of green beans. Yet, the local specialty coffee scene deserves a much louder voice. That is exactly why the Antwerp Specialty Coffee Collective exists. We are the NGO behind Antwerp Coffee Week.
We spotlight every single link in the coffee chain, bring professionals and enthusiasts together, and make sure Antwerp gets the global credit it deserves. With our annual city-wide festivities, we bring the massive scale of the port to life in the coffee bars. We build the physical platform where coffee professionals and enthusiasts actually meet and learn new things. Antwerp Coffee Week is an annual, city-wide festival highlighting the local specialty coffee scene, running for an entire week filled with workshops, tastings, and events. During this week, participants can visit all participating coffee bars, join the stamp card campaign, or attend events and workshops.
ALL OPEN POSITIONS
Operational Team
see all positions in this department
1. General coordinator
role description
What you will actually do:
- Keep the ultimate overview over the entire Antwerp Specialty Coffee organisation and team.
- Guide, motivate, and check in on all core team members to make sure we hit the goals and our project moving forward.
- Unblock bottlenecks whenever a team member gets stuck or a sudden challenge hits.
- Strong project management skills and the mental bandwidth to keep focus and get people on board with your vision.
- Emotional intelligence; you know how to lead and motivate a team and make them work together effectively.
- Courage to make the hard, final calls when the group is stuck in an brainstorming debate.
2. Finance specialist
role description
What you'll do:
- Handle the day-to-day bookkeeping, including tracking expenses, sending, and paying invoices.
- Build realistic budget plans and set hard goals for our fundraising efforts.
- Draft a multi-year financial strategy so we can eventually start compensating our core members.
- Proficiency with numbers, spreadsheets, and accounting logic.
- A strategic mindset with a long-term perspective.
- High degree of accuracy, reliability, and honesty.
3. Webmaster & workspace specialist
role description
What you'll do:
- Keep the website, domains, and other online platforms running smoothly.
- Manage our internal and external tools for example; Notion/ Google drive/ Slack/ linktree.
- Structural organization skills.
- Technical and familiarity with user-friendly web- & work platforms.
4. Vibe manager
role description
What you'll do:
- Actively guard and nurture a positive, deeply supportive team culture.
- Keep track of birthdays, celebrate wins, and bring tasty snacks to meetings.
- Act as a confidential sounding board and monitor the mental well-being of the team.
- Checking in with team members between meetings about their well-being, actively listening for feedback, and acting as a sounding board.
- Empathetic personality and strong emotional intelligence.
- Natural ability to connect with others and create a safe environment.
- Proactive caregiving skills and attentiveness.
5. Volunteer responsible
role description
What you'll do:
- Recruit enthusiastic volunteers for the festival week and specific side events.
- Maintain crystal clear communication so nobody is ever left guessing their shift times.
- Ensure everyone is properly briefed and gets the appreciation they deserve.
- Strong social skills and the ability to inspire others.
- Excellent logistical skills for managing complex schedules.
- Clear, direct, and warm communication skills.
Marketing Team
see all positions in this department
6. Brand & marketing manager
role description
What you'll do:
- Take charge and overview of all external communications and brand strategies.
- Lead and align the graphics, photo, video, PR, content, and web teams.
- Ensure every single piece of output matches our core vision of accessible specialty coffee.
- Proven leadership skills for managing creative teams.
- Sharp strategic thinking and a broad perspective.
- Ability to delegate, motivate, and support a team effectively.
7. Graphic designer and art direction
role description
What you'll do:
- Guard the visual identity and create stunning posters, maps, and stamp cards.
- Build foolproof design templates so the marketing team can create content quickly.
- Oversee the physical production and printing of all our promotional materials.
- Proficiency in digital design tools.
- Strong, confident aesthetic vision aligned with the brand.
- Knowledge of print production requirements and deadlines.
8. Content creator
role description
What you'll do:
- Brainstorm and execute wild, engaging ideas for Instagram and TikTok.
- Run daily community management, which means actually talking to people in the comments and dms.
- Hype up partner events and highlight local job opportunities in the Antwerp coffee scene.
- Deep understanding of social media platform dynamics.
- Quick, witty, and effective copywriting skills.
- Comfortable working both in front of and behind the camera.
9. Pr manager
role description
What you'll do:
- Write sharp, irresistible press releases and pitch them to relevant journalists.
- Identify and build relationships with influencers who actually align with our vibe.
- You will work strongly together with the whole marketing team.
- Ability to translate stories into newsworthy press releases.
- Strong understanding of the media landscape and existing journalist contacts.
10. Video manager
role description
What you'll do:
- Film and edit footage of participating coffee bars, sponsors, and festival events.
- Pitch and produce original videos to explain our mission and build public interest.
- Direct a video crew during the festival week to cover multiple simultaneous events.
- Set up a simple digital platform where the crew can upload raw files and marketing can download finished assets.
- Work directly with the marketing team to align video content with online campaigns.
- Proficiency in camera operation and video editing software.
- Ability to work independently with a focus on visual storytelling and pacing.
- You get full credit on all your work, including in our official PR media kit.
- We actively promote your freelance services on our channels to help you generate leads.
- You get full access to our contact database to pitch your own business to participating companies and entrepreneurs.
11. Photographer
role description
What you'll do:
- Shoot photos of events, partner bars, sponsors, and the core team.
- Anticipate the team's visual needs and deliver ready-to-use assets for marketing and sales.
- Manage a structured photo database so the team can find images instantly.
- Capture candid moments of the team.
- Expertise in photography and digital editing.
- Independent and proactive work ethic.
- Strong organizational skills for managing visual assets.
- Full credit on all your images, including within our official PR media kit.
- Active promotion of your freelance services on our social channels to generate leads.
- Full access to our contact database to pitch your own business to participating companies and entrepreneurs.
12. Copywriter & editor
role description
What you'll do:
- Write, edit, and polish texts for everything from newsletters to social media captions.
- Build and refine smart AI prompts that the rest of the team can use to draft content safely.
- Brainstorm fresh angles and ideas to keep our messaging sharp.
- Deep passion for language and storytelling.
- Creative and witty writing abilities.
- Sharp attention to detail regarding grammar and spelling.
Partners Team
see all positions in this department
13. Sponsor manager
role description
What you'll do:
- Create an engaging sponsor dossier with results from previous years.
- Valorize our brand so that partners immediately want to sign up with us.
- Contact many potential partners and persuade them to join us.
- Design highly attractive sponsor packages that offer real value for potential brands and present these in an engaging way so brands absolutely want to sign on to our story and vision.
- Pitch our crazy vision to potential partners and close the deals.
- Ensure every sponsor gets exactly the exposure we promised them and make them feel cared for, so they continue to be partners for years to come.
- Fearless approach to direct outreach and communication.
- Strong commercial sense and persuasive storytelling skills.
- Organized workflow management for lead follow-up.
- An essential go-getter attitude.
14. Key account coffee bars
role description
What you'll do:
- Act as the main point of contact for all potential coffee bar partners.
- Motivate them to join our festival and host an event.
- Collaborate heavily with the event, content, and quality control teams to support the bars.
- Natural networking skills and a love for the local coffee community.
- Persistent and professional follow-up abilities.
- Great logistical insight for urban navigation.
15. Event coordinator
role description
What you'll do:
- Draft a clear, foolproof plan for partners hosting an official event.
- You will actively get coffeebars, partners and sponsors inspired to create events that are adding to our mission.
- You will set up a structure to organize the calendar effectively. You will ensure the schedule is well-coordinated so there are no overlapping events of the same type.
- Support and inspire specialty entrepreneurs to set up their event.
- Coordinate with sponsors so they can integrate a brand experience naturally into the week.
- Superior organizational skills.
- Confident communication skills for outreach and site visits.
- Creative conceptual thinking and the ability to inspire others.
16. Event production manager
role description
What you'll do:
- You will build and run the complete production for our own ASCC events during the week (e.g., Taste & Talk, the Brewers Competition, and Taste Market). You will have ownership to create an event concept that brings all our stakeholders together.
- Manage everything from the initial concept down to the final teardown.
- Lead the team in executing the full event together.
- Hands-on event production experience and the ability to thrive in dynamic environments.
- Strong problem-solving and improvisation skills.
- Stress resistance and effective floor leadership.
17. Workshop manager
role description
What you'll do:
- Scout and convince partners, roasters, and baristas to host educational sessions.
- Help them structure their workshops and figure out the logistics.
- Strike the right balance between entry level and advanced workshops (so there is an offering for all levels).
- An established network within coffee education.
- Insight into current educational trends and learner needs.
- Strong coordination skills for aligning speakers and venues.
18. Stamp card manager
role description
What you'll do:
- Design the full physical and logistical flow of the stamp card campaign.
- Manage the distribution, registration, and restocking of cards across all participating bars.
- Hustle partners to provide amazing prizes and organize the final giveaway.
- A passion for solving complex logistical puzzles.
- Commercial drive to secure high-quality partnership prizes.
19. Quality control manager
role description
What you'll do:
- Define the transparent, fair conditions a coffee bar needs to meet to be able participate as an official specialty coffee bar.
- Visit applicant bars, taste their coffee, and give highly constructive, kind feedback through an objective reporting system.
- Find the perfect balance between maintaining high standards and keeping the festival accessible to growing businesses.
- Technical knowledge of specialty coffee, extraction, and appliances.
- Excellent diplomacy and constructive feedback skills.
- Genuine commitment to industry-wide growth.
Supportive Team
see all positions in this department
20. Volunteer
role description
What you'll do:
- Provide crucial on-the-ground support to the core team before and during the festival.
- Help out practically at the various events to ensure everything runs smoothly.
- Distribute materials across the city and assist with gathering content.
- This role is task-based, offering a more flexible commitment.
- Willingness to contribute in a supportive and flexible capacity.
- Availability for specific tasks and event-based support.
acw26 made possible by
OATLY - SCHUILENBURG - ALPRO - GILI - JARR
and Dopper, Homebarista, Jetdrinks, Sucafina & Top of the crop.
Meet the team
-
![]()
Bram
-
![]()
Channay
-
![]()
Dennis
-
![]()
Krzysztof
-
![]()
Magaly
-
![]()
Mauro
-
![]()
Robbe
-
![]()
Sanne
-
![]()
Tim
Stories
Featured
Follow us