IN-PERSON

In this episode of Event Experience, you'll learn how Airtable Head of Events Gianna Gaudini planned and executed the brand's inaugural marquee event, the Airtable Leaders Forum (ALF). The team at Airtable designed ALF to accomplish multiple goals for different audiences, including driving pipeline, announcing a new category, and showcasing thought leadership from the CEO. Gaudini shares the ins and outs of the event planning process and setting goals for ALF, including the strategic decision-making involved in focusing on specific goals, targeting the right audience, and maximizing the event's impact.  Here's what you'll hear about in this conversation: How to create reasonable goals and leverage event data to make incremental improvements How to prioritize your event goals and stick to what truly matters The significance of post-event feedback, analysis, debrief sessions, NPS scores, press coverage, pipeline goals, and more Mentioned in This Episode 2022 Airtable Leaders Forum Key Takeaways 2023 Airtable Leaders Forum Key Takeaways Huberman Lab podcast Gianna Gaudini on LinkedIn "Gianna's Million Dollar Event Career” Course (Bizzabo15 to get 15% off!)

Ashley Jenkins, Meg Fasy, and Brent Turner discuss fresh strategies and get guidance for attracting new sponsors and retaining current ones.

Kelly Hoey dismantles everything you thought you knew about event networking in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Julius Solaris, Alon Alroy, and Nicola Kastner sit down for a lively discussion about the event industry's most pressing issues. 

Monique Ruff-Bell, Tania Capaz, and Paul McAvinchey join Kyana Shamloo to look back at the past six months of in-person events and explore what the future holds.

Devin and Daphne discuss the new role of the Event Experience Leader and the skillset needed to thrive in the evolving events environment.

Candina and Liz discuss building intention into every stage of the attendee journey. You'll learn digital and event design strategies to grow your audience and enhance the experience from beginning to end.

In this episode, we talk with Julius Solaris, one of the most influential people in the events industry, well-followed for his research and analysis. He has founded several companies, including EventMB, which was acquired by Skift in 2019 and recently rebranded as Skift Meetings. Solaris is the founder of Boldpush, a management consulting agency for the event industry. He is a frequent keynote speaker at events all over the world. Here's what you'll hear about in this conversation: The status of in-person events and the importance of staying nimble amid ongoing uncertainty How to use data to be more strategic and intentional about your in-person events Why content is the key to delivering successful hybrid events Web3, the metaverse, and the massive opportunity for events Mentioned in This Episode Julius Solaris on LinkedIn Julius Solaris (@tojulius) on Twitter Boldpush

In this episode, we talk with Bizzabo's Rachel Heller about how to champion DE&I at every stage of your event plan. Rachel Heller is an event content professional with more than a decade of experience working in the technology space on events ranging from 50 to 50,000 attendees. Heller leads content strategy for Bizzabo-hosted events and contributes to programming for additional thought leadership initiatives. She is a member of the Event Content Council and has held event content strategy roles at Sage Intacct and PTC. She is passionate about crafting diverse, equitable, and inclusive speaker lineups and providing attendees with engaging content. Here's what you'll hear about in this conversation:  How to ensure DE&I hits every corner of your event strategy How to choose a diverse and inclusive speaker lineup How to ensure your event is a reflection of your attendees Simple ways to get started weaving inclusion into your event Mentioned in This Episode “How To Build a Diverse Speaker Lineup for Your Event” The Guide To Building a DE&I-Driven Event Strategy The Event Experience Summit

In this episode, we talk with Ryan Schefke and Brad Froese about new ways to increase engagement at events. Ryan Schefke is the Founder and CEO of Captello, a premier end-to-end lead capture and event engagement software platform.  Brad Froese is a marketing professional with over 20 years of experience in network television, public speaking, magazine publication, non-profit, and SaaS marketing. Here's what you'll hear about in this conversation:  Overcoming the challenges of engagement at events before the pandemic Capturing leads via engagement activations at events Rethinking how to increase engagement at events in the future Mentioned in This Episode Captello Arcade The Event Squad Cast

In this episode, we talk with Orson Francescone of The Financial Times about building community through strategic events and investing in a digital-first event approach. Francescone has worked in the B2B media and events industry for more than 15 years. He has led global conference and exhibitions businesses for Euromoney Institutional Investor, and Haymarket Media Group. Since November 2019, he has been managing director of FT Live, the global event business of the Financial Times.  Throughout his career, Francescone has specialized in enabling publishers to monetize their content and drive high-margin revenues via all event formats, from conferences to awards ceremonies to large-scale exhibitions and trade shows and, more recently, digital events. He has launched some of the world's most successful and award-winning events, including Gastech, the Festival of Work, and, more recently, The Global Boardroom. Here's what you'll hear about in this conversation:  Building community through strategic events Pivoting event strategy throughout the pandemic Executing a webinar with 6,000 registrations in just five days Supporting a team while shifting from in-person to virtual events Investing in a digital-first approach to events

Nicola Kastner talks about the power of data to define event strategy and rethinking the ‘why' behind events.

Eran Ben-Shushan and Alon Alroy, two of the three co-founders of Bizzabo, talk about their new book Event Success: Maximizing the Business Impact of In-person, Virtual, and Hybrid Experiences.

Eran (guest speaker), Megan Murphy (guest speaker), and Devin (host) discuss the Event Experience category and its origins in the evolving expectations and challenges of event organizers.

Kim Darling (Vice President & Executive Producer, INBOUND) shares how HubSpot is thinking about the hybrid future, from sponsors and budgets to inspiration, all with an audience-first lens. Kim leads the global event team at INBOUND, one of the most well-respected B2B events in the industry. Since 2014, Kim has grown the Global Events team from 2 to 20+ people and grown INBOUND registrants from 7,500 to 26,000+ and many more virtual attendees in 2020. Under Kim's leadership, ticket and sponsorship revenue have grown exponentially and the team launched a media branch of the INBOUND experience that has achieved up to 1M views per week at its height while putting a spotlight on stories of company and personal growth.

Richard is the President and General Manager of Superfly. Richard oversees Superfly's agency services business and drives the development of award-winning strategic and creative marketing solutions for leading brands by leveraging Superfly's unparalleled expertise in cultural storytelling, community building and experience creation. With over 25 years of experience, Richard has held a variety of executive roles within global agency networks. Most recently, Black was Chief Growth Officer at Momentum Worldwide where he achieved unprecedented growth for the agency's New York flagship office, greatly increasing client acquisition year-over-year and modernizing the agency's brand across all communication channels. Throughout his career, Black has excelled at fostering innovation and collaboration with an inclusive leadership style that brings out the best in those with whom he works.

Rex Serrao is the Senior Director of Marketing Technology at Salesforce. For years, Salesforce has successfully led the way for in-person events with household name event brands like Dreamforce and the World Tour Series. More recently the Salesforce team has pioneered the virtual event space, and are now paving the way for the hybrid models of the future. Rex has held IT roles across a variety of industries for more than 10 years. Starting as a remediation consultant bringing troubled projects across the finish line, he went on to run application development, PMOs, product organizations and Technology strategy functions in financial services, insurance, and healthcare domains.  As the Senior Director of Marketing Technology, Rex currently runs the global event and brand technology capability at Salesforce.

Keyana Kashfi is the Global Director of Experiential & Content Production for Spotify where she acts as the Executive Producer, bringing Spotify’s brand to life through events and experiences across the globe. Keyana spearheads production for Spotify’s largest executions at industry events such as Cannes Lions and other global tentpoles, as well as major owned events like Stream On. Keyana has spent her career in event production with a focus on media and entertainment brands, executing both B2B and B2C activations. Prior to joining Spotify, she served as a producer and led production and video content teams for organizations such as NBC, Vevo, Discovery Communications, and CNN. 

Sean Doyle is an experiential event marketer who has leveraged his passion for events to tell brand stories and amplify their messages. Since graduating from the Cannes Lions School, Sean has worked in multiple different creative capacities and has helped many clients and companies successfully connect with their audiences through event marketing. As the Experiential Marketing Lead at Pinterest in Europe, Sean creates live events and experiential marketing campaigns that engage their community of advertisers and creators. With over 30 years of experience, he consistently finds creative ways to tell the Pinterest brand story and drive comprehension of how Pinterest inspires hundreds of millions of people to build the lives they love.

Brad Ehrlich, (General Manager, Markey’s) shares his experience helping clients shift to virtual events and how he and his team are already supporting the technical aspects of hybrid. Brad joined the Markey's team in 1994 as a driver/rental technician and quickly learned all facets of the event industry. He was soon promoted to management and took over Markey’s in-house services at multiple hotel facilities in the Indianapolis area. Now as the General Manager at Markey’s Rental and Staging, Brad oversees corporate strategic and operational initiatives at the Indianapolis headquarters.

Joey Graziano is the Senior Vice President of Global Business Operations and Global Events at the NBA. Joey leads strategic planning, business development, data analytics, and process improvement for the NBA's marquee global events, including the NBA All-Star Game, NBA Finals presented by YouTube TV, and NBA draft. He and his team also orchestrated the NBA Bubble.

Jessica is an experienced marketing professional with a demonstrated history of success at SaaS businesses, growth-stage companies and tech startups. She is a strong leader invested in developing marketing talent and teamwork. Jessica has been at Movable Ink for 6 years, holding 4 roles within the marketing team. As Vice President of Marketing at Movable Ink, Jessica leads a team responsible for all global performance marketing activities including demand generation, ABM, client, partner, content, and events marketing. In her role, she created and launched the Think Summit, annual conference, as well as two roadshow programs: the Experience Transformation Tour (formerly the Email Transformation Tour) and the X Series.

Angel Micarelli is an experienced writer who has leveraged her passion for storytelling in marketing and events. After graduating from Harvard, Angel went on to help brands tell their stories and connect with their audiences through carefully crafted messaging. As the Senior Vice President of Strategy and Content at Cramer, Angel helps their clients realize their vision through marketing and events. With over 20 years of experience, she offers clients the unique talent of conveying complex products and technologies with clarity and creativity. Her track record of successful integrated branding and multi-channel marketing programs includes working with industry leaders such as Siemens Healthineers, Fidelity, ADP, UPS, and IBM.

Stacey brings 25 years of experience in the marketing and events industry and is a big believer in prioritizing engagement and events as part of an integrated marketing plan. With a focus on strategically aligning audience needs with brand go-to-market strategy and desired outcomes, Stacey leads teams from ideation through implementation while identifying transformational efficiencies and improvements. Stacey is currently Director, Audience Engagement and Global Events for Siemens Digital Industries Software, and previously held leadership account roles on the agency side.

Adele Durham, (VP of Events, Haymarket Media) opens up about her experience creating engaging events and shares her tips for uncovering what audiences really want, driving value for sponsors in a digital world, and proving virtual event ROI. Adele has spent over a decade following her passion for media and events from London to New York City. She started at Haymarket Media 14 years ago as a senior sales executive, working her way up, and now leads the events team as the Vice President of events. Haymarket media was well-versed in virtual events long before COVID-19, and Adele is using her digital and live experience to plan engaging and successful virtual events like their recent PRWeek Awards.

Donna Stewart (National Urban League) shares her passion and tips for focusing on the end-user experience with virtual events, the role of timelines and time management in virtual broadcasts, and the access that virtual events afford when it comes to featuring speakers and influencers that resonate with your audience. As the Vice President of Events Management at National Urban League, Donna Stewart brings over 20 years of experience developing brand strategies for experiential touchpoints for consumers, managing multi-million dollar budgets, and leading teams of production professionals. Donna Stewart has produced events for brands like Essence, Black Enterprise, and Disney—before taking the helm of Events Management at the National Urban League. Well before COVID-19 forced event organizers to go virtual, Donna and her team staged live broadcasts and virtual events on behalf of the organization.

Kyle Suzuki (Head of XM Events, Qualtrics) shares his journey from building passionate communities of gamers to building passionate communities of corporate professionals and what these audiences share in common. He also shares his thoughts on following your passion, building a 5-year plan, the value in turning virtual events into campaigns, and how he and his team have been adjusting to the new skills and circumstances of 2020.  As the Head of XM Events at Qualtrics, Kyle oversees the event team creating the flagship XM category building brand moments for Qualtrics. This includes the annual X4: Experience Management Summit and most recently a virtual event, WorkDifferent, showcasing how iconic brands are taking action to move forward. Before joining Qualtrics, Kyle spent over 8 years in consumer entertainment product marketing for Xbox. Kyle brought his passion for creative, experiential activation and entertainment marketing, honed from years working in gaming, to the B2B space.

Lauren Lawson (Director of Events and Engagement Programs at the National Audubon Society) opens up about her trajectory from healthcare to conservation, lessons that she’s learned throughout her career in the nonprofit sector, and how the events team at the National Audubon Society is creating engaging virtual events now and planning for the future. As the Director of Events and Engagement Programs at the National Audubon Society, Lauren oversees the events program taking place across the network and works to ensure the events help move Audubon’s mission forward. Prior to this, she worked with The Trust for Public Land, where she managed events ranging from the organization’s annual gala to helping develop their Park Bench Chat series.

Jennifer Hoffmann Roach shares how she and her team are taking a diversified approach to virtual event monetization, lessons learned from staging 30+ virtual events, and why a good grit is hard to find. Jennifer is the Global Head of Audience for Bloomberg Live, the editorial live events division of Bloomberg Media. Prior to Bloomberg, Jenn managed global marketing and audience development for The Wall Street Journal Conferences division at Dow Jones and spent 10+ years in media and communications.

Marco Giberti shares what event and marketing professionals can learn from COVID-19. Featuring tips on producing virtual events and embracing a hybrid event strategy. Marco has more than 25 years of intensive experience as Co-Founder and CEO in media, technology, and the events industry companies. In this capacity, he sits on Boards of Directors as well as on advisory boards and he assists co-founders and CEOs in consultative capacities to help drive business planning, growth, and strategy.

Sara Gorlick (VP of Events at Rakuten) shares how to tie events to categories of ROI, align with sales teams, lead with resiliency through crises like COVID-19, and more. Sara Gorlick is the VP of Events at Rakuten where she leads the Americas event team in planning the company’s flagship event Optimism as well as 30+ other events around the world. Sara has worked in events since 2006. She’s been named Corporate Event Planner of the Year by BizBash and Corporate Planner of the Year by Event Solutions.

Nani Shaffer (Senior Director of Demand Generation & Marketing Operations at Demandbase) shares how events fit into a larger ABM strategy, how to align event KPIs with goals, and why event teams should think like sales teams. Nani Shaffer brings a decade of B2B Marketing experience across Marketing Operations, Product Marketing and Demand Generation. Nani is responsible for the measurement and optimization of the Marketing organization and oversees the strategy and execution of integrated programs.

Heather Odendaal (CEO of WNORTH) shares how her career in events led to the launch of WNORTH. We also discuss content, speakers, and scaling an event community from grassroots to a global brand. Heather is the CEO of WNORTH, an event series for women on a path to executive leadership. Heather is an accomplished entrepreneur and event producer. She has worked on Canada’s most influential events including the Whistler Film Festival, Crankworx Mountain Bike Festival, and the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.

Gianna Cardinale Gaudini (Global Director, Head of Events at SoftBank Vision Fund) shares her thoughts on building an events team, work-life balance, wine, and more. Gianna is an award-winning Executive Event Producer and author of The Art of Event Planning with over 15 years of experience in the marketing and hospitality industry. Gianna is currently the Global Director, Head of Events for the SoftBank Vision Fund, and previously ran events for Google’s Events and Experience team for 9+ years.

Erin Flannery (Head of Events at Lattice) shares her thoughts on prioritizing budget within a growing event program, launching a user conference, sponsorship negotiation, feels vs. metrics, where direct mail can fit into a larger event marketing strategy, and much more. As the first Events hire at Lattice, Erin built the events program from the ground up creating a full-scale program that includes sponsorships, dinners, workshops and Lattice’s inaugural conference—Resources for Humans Live.

Chris Duke (Senior Manager, Global Event Marketing at Rubrik) shares his thoughts on leading with empathy, working with agencies, launching a global field marketing campaign and a user conference, event exhibition strategy, working with agencies, and his final verdict on the latest entry in the Fast and Furious franchise. Chris oversees Rubrik's global event program. Before joining Rubrik, Chris worked at brands like DC Shoes, Red Bull, and GoPro—granting him a unique B2C perspective on B2B marketing.

Trista Myers (Head of Events, Salesforce Ventures) shares a behind the scenes look at Dreamforce, how Salesforce Ventures creates executive experiences, tips for working with multiple event partners, baking recipes, and why you should never sell yourself short when interviewing for your next role. Trista leads all global events for Salesforce Ventures. In 2018 she was selected for Event Marketer's list of 35 National Experiential Event Professionals under 35 for her work at AOL and on Dreamforce.

Monique Ruff-Bell (Events Director at Money20/20) discusses Cannes Lions, growing your career with mentors and sponsors, how to make big events feel small, supporting women in leadership, and singing karaoke around the globe. Monique is the Event Director at Money 20/20 USA and VP of Events at its parent company Ascential plc. Monique’s responsibilities include setting the show vision and strategy with the Global President, plan execution, P&L management, and sales and marketing support and performance.

Andréa Long (Global Diversity Events Manager at Twilio) discusses Twilio's After Hours Events program, how employee resource groups can be a powerful catalyst for change, diversity and inclusion best practices, and weighted blankets. Prior to Twilio, Andréa managed branding, marketing, and events on the recruiting team at Lyft, co-led Lyft's black employee resource group, and launched the company's first series of events celebrating Black History Month. She also co-founded Our Collective, a community resource group for professionals across Silicon Valley.

Helen Stoddard (Head of Global Events at Twitter) discusses what it takes to create buzzworthy events, why B2B and B2C events aren't really that different after all, and how events help drive Twitter's revenue strategy. Helen owns Twitter's presence at large events like South by Southwest, Cannes, and CES. Prior to Twitter, Helen led events at Toys "R" Us and Nickelodeon, founded and managed her own event production company, and spent several years working on David Letterman's Tonight Show. #PinkSweats

Karen Merritt (Head of Owned and Operated Events, LinkedIn) shares a behind-the-scenes look at Talent Connect, how she and her team take a customer-centric approach to events, tips for creating networking opportunities, thoughts on segmenting audience data, and what marketers can learn from Disney Land. At LinkedIn, Karen oversees the strategy and execution of roughly 200 proprietary events across the globe. Prior to LinkedIn, Karen had the opportunity to lead events at companies like Cisco and Splunk.

David Adler (CEO of BizBash) shares the most unconventional fundraising story that you’ll ever hear, how to develop an event from an online brand, tips on securing sponsors and partners, event trends, and restaurant recs. David founded Bizbash back in 2000 with the idea of creating the first marketplace for events and meeting professionals. Since then, BizBash has become a leading voice in the industry—boasting digital and print offerings, and producing the city-spanning BizBash Live event series.

Nicola Kastner (Global Head of Event Marketing Strategy at SAP) shares how she and the team transformed SAPPHIRE NOW—SAP’s annual flagship conference. Along the way we discussed ABM strategy, creating data-driven content journeys, what IKEA, Disney World and grocery shopping have to do with professional events, and why it pays to be an Excel nerd. Working alongside the Head of Global events, Nicola is in charge of overseeing SAP’s event strategy. Before Nicola formally joined the team in 2016, she was assisting SAP in a consultative capacity for several years. All said and done, Nicola has accumulated over 20 years of events experience, working on both the agency and in-house side.

Devin Cleary (VP Experiential Marketing, PTC) shares lessons learned across his eclectic career, how to use data and personas to grow an event, how to retain and hire top talent, and why events need to try harder when it comes to diversity and inclusion. By the time Devin joined PTC in 2016, he had already spearheaded the growth of HubSpot’s INBOUND event, overhauled the event program at the American Red Cross, and spent nearly 6 years orchestrating conferences and trade shows at his own events company.

Janna Erickson (Director of Events at Drift) discusses why you should consider hijacking events, the art of event marketing hand-to-hand combat, managing an events team from “startup” to “scale-up”, and parleying event expertise in discussions with key stakeholders. Janna joined Drift in 2017 to help take the team’s event strategy to the next level. Prior to Drift, Janna accumulated over 8 years of event experience from working at brands like HubSpot, Kayak.com, and TomTom.

Vasil Azarov (Founder, Growth Marketing Conference) shares how to launch an event from scratch, how to collaborate with partners and sponsors, the best channels for driving growth, the emergence of the “event marketing” category, and wine. Since founding GMC, Vasil has scaled it to over 106K members. He is also the CEO of Startup Socials—which is dedicated to providing resources for founders—and has worked with large brands like IBM and Delta Airlines and high growth startups like Autopilot and Zendesk.

Alyson Griffin, VP of Global Marketing at Intel, shares why events are a powerful medium for storytelling. Along the way, we discussed virtually dissected frogs, snot bots, whales, Star Wars, and how Alyson made went from being a pharmacist to a global marketing VP. For the past three years, Alyson has been on a mission to spread awareness around Intel’s B2B Operations. Before working at Intel, Alyson spent 15 years at Hewlett-Packard which culminated in her role as Vice President of Americas Marketing.

Eleni Thomas (Director of Events and Meetings, KPMG) discusses the kind of processes needed for managing 2,500 events a year, the value of networking with other event planners, what it means to be a service-oriented events department, mitigating risk in a compliance-heavy industry, and owning mistakes. Between Eleni's current role at KPMG and her 13 years of leading the events team at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, Eleni has spent much of her career spearheading events for professional services organizations.

Joey Hinson (Director of Operations, TechCrunch) discusses the challenges of scaling TC Disrupt, the value of qualitative feedback, why sometimes you're better off not feeding attendees, the future of event technology, and how events are helping to democratize the startup landscape. Leading the operations behind Disrupt and TechCrunch’s events and advertising programs, Joey has been with TechCrunch for over seven years. During that time has seen first-hand how the organization’s event program has grown.

Andrea Rosen (Head of 99U, Adobe) shares the history of 99U and how it has evolved over the years. she discusses curating creativity, balancing experience and substance, and some of the best ways to organize to-dos. Having lead the marketing team at a company that serves architects and press relations for a music festival, Andrea has a long career of working in marketing roles for creative audiences. She is passionate about curation and has an encyclopedic knowledge of trends, influencers, and events.

Steve Randazzo (President, Pro Motion) shares lessons learned from 30 years in events, advice for breaking through the marketing clutter, how to measure return on emotion from experiential, and how to charge your brand with authenticity and purpose. Steve has worked with clients like The Walt Disney Company, Hewlett-Packard, Anheuser-Busch, Citgo, the NBA, and many other great organizations. He's also the author of Brand Experiences: Building Connections in a Digitally Cluttered World.