Rachel Hofstetter, 32, works in Salt Lake City as chief marketing officer at Chatbooks. As a 2017 40 Under 40 honoree, Hofstetter discusses her passion for the events industry.
*Connect with Hofstetter on Twitter and Instagram.
What I do: I run marketing for Chatbooks, which lets you make easy photo books for or from your event, and
Guesterly, the modern guest guide that lets you make “who’s who” directories for events.
How I got here: I ended up in events fortuitously while I was trying to solve a problem for my own wedding. When my husband and I got married, our guests were coming in from all over, and we wanted to make it easy for them to get to know each other. So we riffed on the physical “face book” booklets from college and made a booklet featuring everyone’s name, picture and a fun bio. It was a hit, and soon we were making them for friends of friends, and then getting requests to sell them. Guesterly was born!
How it translated to corporate events: People didn’t want the books just for weddings. They wanted them for conferences, events and sales meetings. The first month after our website went live, we got a call from P&G, which wanted to do Guesterly books for all its sales meetings. I remember that moment when we thought, “This is going to be amazing and so easy.” None of it was easy; it was a crazy two years after that. That’s how we got into the corporate space. These days, it’s a whole software system that lets you easily make a directory for corporate events, retreats and more. In 2015, Chatbooks acquired Guesterly, and now I run marketing across all brands.
My greatest career accomplishment: Everything we’ve done at Chatbooks and Guesterly is pretty amazing. But I used to be the food editor at O, The Oprah Magazine, and that was pretty wonderful too.
What I’m working on: We’re rolling out a whole new strategy for corporate-event Guesterlys with an amazing team behind it. I can’t wait to see what they accomplish!
What I do outside of work: I love to hike and ski in the Utah mountains.
Five phrases that identify me: CMO; runner; Utahan; food lover; hiker
