For a company that provides collaborative workspaces for its members, it’s fitting that WeWork’s events reinforce the idea of the company as a community. As its director of events, Karly Giaramita’s main goal is to encourage connection among company members and staff through memorable live experiences.
“Our workspaces and communal areas are physical means of bringing our members together on a daily basis, and our digital member network allows for global connection and communication across time zones and languages,” says Giaramita, 31. “Our events, though, are perhaps our most versatile and exciting means of creating communal experiences for WeWork members, employees, and other groups that are important to our community.”
Based in New York, Giaramita has overseen events for the company since 2012, when she was hired to plan its first summer conference, known as the WeWork Summer Camp. The remote event turned into an annual conference, which in 2015 brought more than 2,000 members and staff to Raquette Lake Camps in the Adirondacks for three days of classic camp activities combined with networking events, educational sessions, and festival-style concerts from acts including The Weeknd. As the WeWork community grows, Giaramita says conference attendance will only increase.
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Giaramita has also worked on other events, such as WeWork’s Global Summit—a New York-based meeting of company employees from around the world—which in its second year took place in January during a major snowstorm. As many attendees hadn’t even seen snow before, Giaramita decided to cut a day of indoor programming and stage a snowball fight by the New York Stock Exchange.
Giaramita also makes sure that new events speak to the company’s ideology. As an alternative to the typical office holiday party, the company hosted its first “giving back” days in December, in which each WeWork location hosted a holiday-theme event for a local nonprofit. In New York, staff hosted New York Foundling foster children and their families for a day of gift- wrapping, arts and crafts, and a performance by a cappella group the Maccabeats.
“Instead of spending a lot of money on a holiday party, we decided to take our time, resources, and funds to give back to communities at large,” Giaramita says. “We’re going to try and expand on that program, since it speaks to our values as a company.”
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