<a href="https://www.allbusiness.com/profiles/bringing-clients-visions-to-life-karen-hartline-reinventing-events-100761-1.html" target="_blank">Bringing Clients' Visions to Life: Q&A With Karen Hartline of Reinventing Events</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;<font color="#6f6f6f">AllBusiness</font>

Bringing Clients' Visions to Life: Q&A With Karen Hartline of Reinventing Events - AllBusiness

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Summer Camp for Adults: 4 Professional Retreats to Explore in 2013 - Forbes

University of Central Oklahoma

Madison Area Technical College

Director, Corporate Events at GitLab

Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

GitLab

Director, Corporate Events

Homepoint

Director of Events

Responsible for shaping the event strategy, leading a team, and driving business results through global events: a key component of Particle's marketing strategy.

Particle

Senior Event Marketing Manager

After working for 7 years running my own successful event production company, I had the desire to go in-house and help corporations create and execute their entire event strategy – not just produce one-off events. I was recruited by Capsilon in 2018 to manage its B2B marketing, industry, and internal event programming.

When I arrived at the tech company, I analyzed the event budget to see where we were spending our money while also looking at the ROI of past events. I realized that the company was spending a large fee for a conference sponsorship with little to no return on our money. With this in mind, I reduced the conference budget 55% and strategized to create events that attracted the right people – without having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars.

My intuition worked – I created off-site one-on-one meeting opportunities for our key prospects and customer decision-makers that contributed tens of millions to the pipeline and millions in closed deals.

Additional Accomplishments as the Senior Manager of Event Marketing:
-  Using the company’s account-based marketing approach, I collaborated with the sales team to attract the key prospects that the company had been chasing for years by targeting only those prospects most desired to attend our events.

-  When I stepped into this role, I created the company’s entire event strategy around all of its corporate events.

-  I have also played a key role in the company’s marketing function. Our small but mighty team has boosted its marketing activities to increase email engagement, target ABM strategies, and create messaging that speaks to our customers and prospects.

Capsilon

Senior Manager of Event Marketing – Budget Management, Event Logistics, Marketing Strategy

After leaving Mashable as their Director of Events, I decided to start my own event production company called Reinventing Events. I quickly built a solid reputation for flawlessly executing large-scale B2B events for high-profile clients including SaaStr, Twilio, and TaskRabbit.

It was in this role that I realized I had the unique ability to combine the 30,000-foot vision with on-the-ground execution.

Key Strategies as Director of Event Production & CEO:

-  I worked with clients’ multimillion-dollar budgets to design events that hit the mark every time.

-  Key to organizing events is being able to balance a client’s vision with an event production road map to execute events down to the final detail. I look at the desired end product and work backward to achieve on-point execution.

Key Client Events:

-  TaskRabbit: My team and I executed a 5-day SXSW launch event in which we had to set up and tear down the venue each day while also executing a different ‘theme’ each day.

-  TOPO: We increased their conference profit by more than 200% after reworking their event strategy and analyzing their sponsorship sales for the biggest impact.

-  Twilio: I collaborated with their CEO to execute an ambitious last-minute impact-based keynote presentation.

Reinventing Events

Director of Event Production & CEO – Event Design & Planning, Customer Service, Vendor Relations

INFORUM is the fastest growing division of The Commonwealth Club, as well as one of the largest professional groups for people in their 20′s and 30′s in the Bay Area.

INFORUM produces events across numerous verticals including business, culture, environment, food, politics, media, tech and science, so there’s something for everyone! Recent speakers include Spike Lee, Reid Hoffman, Jaime Oliver, Gavin Newsom, and Michael Minna. Recent topics that have been covered include Doing Business in China, Soldiers Back from Iraq, Urban Singles, Hot Young Chefs, Online Personas, The State of the Arts in San Francisco, and Middle East History 101.

Board of Directors for INFORUM at The Commonwealth Club of California

Program Co-Chair

I rejoined the Mashable team in 2010 to help the brand maintain its solid reputation—and its revenue—for stellar events that attendees would remember.

We had the audacious idea to host a multi-day conference at Disney World, however, we could only host a couple hundred people at the venue. To make sure we attracted the right people, I created a targeted application that strategically vetted the participants and allowed for the “curated” event to have a proper mix of known influencers and unknown up-and-comers who had already passed our stringent application requirements.

Key Accomplishments as Director of Events:

-  I wanted to make sure the sponsors for our SXSW events received exceptional ROI. I developed targeted audience curation opportunities and created sponsorship benefits that allowed for key insights into event attendee demographics.

-  During this time, we also created Mashable Connect, Mashable House SXSW, the Social Good Summit, the Mashable Awards, and #SocialMediaDay.

Mashable

Director of Events – Conference Strategy, Multi-Day Meetings, Sponsorships,  Event Production

An opportunity to join the newly created Digital Strategy & Social Media team became available as I was recruited by their EVP and Global Director of the department to bring my expertise of events and sponsorships. Top clients included PepsiCo, Bel Brands, and <a href="http://Monster.com">Monster.com</a>.

I led the charge to collect sponsorship prospectus from major events in the Social Media industry while working with conference contacts to outline creative opportunities to meet and support our clients’ needs around PR and launch needs. I also outlined the benefits and costs of the sponsorship for the Account team to pitch to our clients.


Key Accomplishments as Manager, Social Media Events & Sponsorships
- I designed a creative outreach opportunity for the Laughing Cow brand to reach family bloggers including private dinner invites and coordinated the setup of a focus group during the event.

- I also produced TechSet's annual SXSW networking event which was a tech influencer event sponsored by Windows Phone, with over 4,000 people registered.

Porter Novelli

Manager, Social Media Events & Sponsorships - Brand Engagement, Sponsor Activation, Event Management

I was recruited by Mashable’s COO to help launch the company’s event strategy which constituted a third of the company’s revenue stream. I managed the brand’s Road Show which became a turning point in positioning the company as an industry leader.

In this role, I coordinated a 7-city U.S. Summer Tour, including travel plans, registration (onsite and online), logistics, securing sponsorships, sponsor care, communication, venue contracts, content posts on <a href="http://Mashable.com">Mashable.com</a>, finances, managing budgets, swag, and volunteers. The event was a smashing success with 3,500+ attendees joining us.

Key Accomplishments as Events Director:
-  During my first year at Mashable, I garnered 14K+ registrants for SXSW events.

-  Also for SXSW, I secured 4 sponsors and hundreds of thousands in revenue for the event.

Director of Events - Road Show Management, Brand Management, Sponsorship Sales

My event planning career kicked off while working at a non-profit campus ministry, specifically reaching fraternity and sorority students. After starting as an Administrative Assistant, I was quickly promoted to Event Planner after showcasing my talents for managing numerous details while ensuring everything was taken care of.

Outside of conference management for our two annual conferences for over 1500 students, other responsibilities included web development for our department for which I completed online HTML classes as well as assisting 50 national staff with marketing needs.

Key Achievements as Event Planner:
- I coordinated the annual 100-Hole Golf Marathon fundraiser, which included creating a webpage development plan to outline the page needs including marketing the event and accepting online donations.

- Knowing I had a knack for event production and marketing, I proposed continuing education classes to my boss which would supplement the work I was doing. I completed a 3-semester Meeting and Event Management program in which I learned the fundamentals of meeting and event management, how to create a budget, and how to review legal agreements.

Karen Hartline, CMP, DES (she/her)