How does your team pull off these big conferences back-to-back?
With eight or nine per year, we’re always working on every conference. It’s cyclical. You keep moving around to what is needed at that moment. My logistics team consists of six people. We also have two audience-development people, two graphic designers in charge of our mobile app, two salespeople and a sponsor-activation person. Besides conferences, my team plans all the company’s client meetings and events in Europe as well. We keep busy.
How big are these events?
They’re all different sizes. We have a CMO Summit in the fall we’ve been doing for years and it’s a smaller group of 125 to 150 people. It’s become a club in a funny way because the attendees always come back. We have the Under 30 Summit too. Last year was the first year and it drew about 1,500 people.
How do you select host cities?
It’s really the city or state coming to us. At our inaugural Reinventing America Summit in Chicago last year, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder [told] our executive producer we should bring the event to Michigan. We looked into it and thought Detroit would be the perfect fit. We went to Indianapolis one year, and it was the governor who asked us to come there. We’re also doing The AgTech Summit Forbes in July in Salinas, California, and they asked us to come [there].
Yes! You don’t even think you are learning anything while you’re planning, but you are surprised when you start to know certain things. For AgTech, I’ll probably know everything about farming by the end. I do know we’re going to the “Salad Bowl of the World” for our event—that’s the nickname for the Salinas Valley.
How do you use off-site events to showcase a destination?
In Detroit, we had salon dinners sponsored by different groups. We took attendees to cool little restaurants in different neighborhoods to show them parts of the city. One dinner was at the Detroit Historical Museum; we took another to a tech hub. One restaurant used to be a pawnshop. That’s our theme: showing what a city is about to our attendees. We sent out the options and each attendee picked two, and then we configured availability. It’s a great way to start out the conference because [they] meet 30 or 40 people on the first night who [they] can talk to the next day.
How else are you incorporating the local trend?
At AgTech, we’re taking people to local farms and production centers. That’s going to be really interesting. In Detroit, we also had opt-in tours. Detroit Experience Factory led tours around the city that were good for out-of-towners as well as people from Detroit because they hadn’t seen the places on the tour. It was hugely popular.
How do you close out a program?
We try to end our events with a small cocktail party. We find that at the end of the day, you can’t even get people out of the ballroom. They are trying to talk to the speakers and to each other. We put cocktails in the prefunction area and let them flow out for the next hour or so. It gives people time to close up and exchange business cards.
Your speaker roster is impressive with names like Jessica Alba, Gayle King and Sara Blakely at Women's Summit. How do you choose them?
I have a person who assists with speakers and manages the programming. But if I happen to see a great speaker, then I share it with an executive producer. Everyone is open and collaborative.
It’s never old hat. At the Under 30 Summit, we had Malala Yousafzai and Monica Lewinsky last year. Sara Blakely is incredible. I was excited to see Nancy Pelosi at the Forbes Women’s Summit, and Chelsea Handler is the opposite extreme. But it often ends up the lesser-known speakers leave people walking away saying, “They were fantastic!”
You meet a lot of celebs through your job, but you work for a well-known family in the public eye too. What's it been like to work for the famed Forbes family for two decades?
It’s a family-run company, which is different from your typical corporate America. You become part of the family. I know all the kids, wives and relatives. They walk around the office and know your name. For instance, it’s not unusual for Steve Forbes to come in my office and try to steal one of my cookies. (Laughs.)
Speaking of family, how does yours feel about your high-power position?
My husband used to tease me, back when I wasn’t as busy, that if I didn’t have something to do at work, I would start planning things at home. He’s glad I’m busier now! But I love producing; it’s the best part of my job. I like bringing people together and getting people to collaborate who may never have met otherwise. I feel sad after a conference is over, but then you move onto the next one.
