The role of the speakers at Event Camp is to create discussions and keep the event social and collaborative. Here are the individuals that will be leading the discussions at Event Camp.
David Adler
Founder and CEO of BizBash Media
From 1994 until 2000, Adler was vice president of corporate communications for PRIMEDIA; previously, he held the same post at Macmillan Inc. from 1988 to 1990. In those positions, Adler was responsible for events, public relations, charitable giving, branding, and special chairman and C.E.O. projects including the Notre Dame University Conference on the Holocaust in 1998. Events projects included the 50th anniversary of Seventeen magazine, the 25th anniversary of New York magazine, the annual New York magazine awards, the 100th anniversary of the Daily Racing Form, and the annual Soap Opera Digest award celebration.
From 1990 until 1993, Adler was vice president of media relations and cause-related marketing, where he was responsible for development and execution programs such as the initial Avon Breast Cancer Initiative, the Reebok Human Rights awards, the Polaroid Missing Children Program, and the John F. Kennedy Library Profiles in Courage awards.
Emilie Barta
Virtual Event Host/Emcee and Hybrid Event Consultant
Meeting planners and event producers rely on Emilie’s unique ability to unite the face-to-face and virtual audiences into one cohesive group, and ensure that the virtual audience never feels forgotten or left behind. Companies depend on Emilie to show them how to fit the many components of hybrid events together, and count on her to engage their virtual audience.
Midori Connolly
CEO and Chief AVGirl, Pulse Staging and Events
Passion of Purpose is what drives Midori. When she discovered there were no recommendations for Green AV practices, she undertook nine months of research and writing to compose the first-ever set of Sustainable Staging guidelines. Open-sourcing this information and sharing with clients and competitors alike, she proceeded to become the sole industry expert on the topic of Green AV for Live Events.
Midori is a Phi Beta Kappa, which essentially means love of knowledge. This passion for learning has propelled her to provide education through her AVGirl advice column for Plan Your Meetings, as a platinum speaker on Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility for MPI and speaking on the Business of Green Meetings for PCMA, Elite Meetings and other organizations. Midori resides in sunny San Diego, CA with her husband and two young children, Coleman and Molly. On the rare occasions when not traveling or working, she can be found hiking, riding horses, racing a veggie oil powered race car or indulging in a round of golf.
Flemming Fog
CEO and Founder of Wizer A/S and Wizerize, Inc.
Flemming Fog worked in the advertising industry as Strategic Director for Young & Rubicam for over 10 years before he founded the consultancy Syntase in 2003. Syntase specialized in helping large organizations deploying their strategies internally (“Bringing strategies to life”).
Using persuasive technologies to engage large audiences at top management conferences, Syntase created highly engaging, international top management conferences for leading Danish based multinationals. Solutions included the Wizer interactivity platform and a suite of business games.
Flemming has now left his previous engagements in Syntase to focus 100% on Wizer – including heading Wizer’s expansion into US.
Lara McCulloch-Carter
Brand Strategist
Lara McCulloch-Carter has built her career on building successful brands. She led strategic brand development for clients like Good Humor-Breyers, Reckitt-Benckiser and Cadbury Adams. In 2006, she joined the Special Events Industry and in her short tenure was honored with the Spirit of the Industry Award as well as the Leadership and Dedication award from ISES Toronto. Lara authors READY2SPARK.com, is the Connections editor for Event Solutions Magazine and is the founder of the #eventprofs Community. Lara consults businesses on brand strategy, marketing communications and social media.
Butch Roy
Executive Director, HUGE Theater
Butch loves improv. It all started 14 years ago with attending a show at the legendary Brave New Workshop, which turned into studying improv at the Brave New Institute, which later led to becoming the Technical Director at the Brave New Workshop, a position he proudly held for eight years. Somewhere in there he also earned his B.F.A. from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, got married, had some kids. In 2002, Butch founded Improv A Go-Go, a weekly, all improvised showcase of some of the best local and national improvisers. Now in its eighth year, this Sunday night show still manages to sell out on a regular basis. In 2006, Butch started the Twin Cities Improv Festival (TCIF), a four-day event featuring shows and workshops. Held each June, TCIF has grown every year, attracting some of the most well-respected and talented improvisors on the continent.
As the Executive Director of HUGE, Butch brings vision, technical expertise and passion to every HUGE production.
Adrian Segar
Author of Conferences That Work: Creating Events That People Love
Adrian Segar has organized and facilitated conferences for thirty years. Dissatisfied with traditional conferences, and realizing that he loved to connect with people, and to create spaces for them to connect with each other, he created the first peer conference in 1992, and has been refining peer conference process ever since. His book Conferences That Work: Creating Events That People Love was published in November 2009, and he currently consults on, designs, and facilitates participant-driven and participation-rich events.
Adrian has a Ph.D. in experimental elementary particle physics, was an independent information technology consultant for 23 years, taught college computer science for 10 years, and co-owned and managed a solar manufacturing company before that. He lives in Marlboro, Vermont, is active in the non-profit world, and loves to sing and dance.
Tracey B. Smith, CMP, CMM
Vice President, The Planner Networks
Tracey Smith, CMP, CMM, managed the extensive user conferences and national sales meetings for a software division of Thomson Reuters for more than 12 years. Since 2005, she has been an independent contractor for various events as well as assisting planners with finding the right speaker for their events. Currently, Tracey is the executive director for neXt Planners, an online network for meeting planners with 5-9 years’ experience, a division of The Planner Networks.
Tracey has the distinct honor of being named the Planner of the Year 2001 by the Dallas-Ft. Worth Chapter of MPI and the Supplier of the Year 2008 by the Minnesota Chapter. She is currently working on an educational book using planners’ horror stories and welcomes submissions.
Erica St. Angel
VP Marketing, Sonic Foundry
Erica St. Angel is the VP of Marketing for Sonic Foundry, a publicly-traded tech company that provides automated, affordable webcasting solutions and services to the meeting industry, corporations, government agencies and universities. She oversees branding, demand generation, PR and social media programs to build mindshare and drive growth. Her unique background blends 15 years of corporate, public information and political marketing, with an emphasis on measuring outcomes, building community and increasing customer engagement. She’s obsessed with how people use technology to bridge time and distance, create new conversations and move the needle. Her work has earned both technology and marketing awards, including most recently the Forrester Groundswell Award for social media in the B2B-Energizing category.
Glenn Thayer
Professional Master of Ceremonies
Glenn Thayer is a professional master of ceremonies that specializes in strategic content delivery, hybrid meetings, and conference moderation. Over the last decade, he has honed the craft of corporate communications as a professional spokesperson who bridges the gap between organizations and their customers. Glenn works with producers and planners to create an event experience that generates a maximized return on investment, engaged attendees, extended content life cycle, and increased
event attendance.
Michael Westscott
VP Marketing, INXPO
Michael is responsible for marketing strategy, communication and customer experience for virtual events and business leader, INXPO. He is helping the organization transform how people use the Web by moving from pages and links to events and destinations where people meet, learn and do business. He has been instrumental in helping to shape the dialogue in the brand and experiential marketing industry for over twenty years and previously ran the Event Marketing Institute at Red7Media helping global brands and agencies use events more effectively. He has founded and managed several marketing and creative service firms including Firebrand, Fitch Boston & The Concentric Group and served as Vice President of Marketing for global event agency, George P. Johnson.
