DREAM TEAM TITLE: Team Captain & Chief Marketing Officer
CURRENT TITLE: Director-Global Third Party Events
WHY WE WANT HIM: For his critical eye and passion for storytelling, and ability to rethink and reinvent an entire event portfolio, as he has for Microsoft’s third party events.

As the son of a restaurateur, you might say service is in Emmanuel Gotsis’ genes. “I started out washing dishes when I was 12,” Gotsis explains. “My dad’s from Greece, and Greeks have restaurants.” As a young man, he worked in restaurants in a number of capacities, from back of the house to  front of the house. After rising through the ranks in fine dining while attending Loyola University in Chicago, he would eventually manage Wolfgang Puck’s Spago restaurant, where he got his first taste of event management.

“Running a restaurant and dinner service is like running an event in and of itself,” he says. “That foundational layer of multi-tasking, needing things done at the right time and in the right way, there’s a lot of connective tissue there.”

Knowing he wanted to pursue a career as a producer, he responded to an ad for an externship at a boutique marketing agency in North Chicago, a husband-and-wife events team that managed an impressive roster of clientele. His career took off from there. As he puts it, “I was hooked.”

Since then, his roles have included senior manager of global events for Apple, including serving as executive producer for Steve Jobs at keynote events and for major Apple product launches like the launch of the iPod and iTunes. He managed global event marketing strategy for Dell global business units and brand and marketing strategy at PayPal. Two years ago, he took on the role of director-global third party events at Microsoft. His team, led by Bob Bejan, head of global events, production studios and marketing community, is part of the central corporate events function at Microsoft, which reports to the cmo. 

Gotsis was tasked with reinventing Microsoft’s third-party events portfolio, which includes events across industries, from thought leadership events to developer events to startup-focused events. This effort included developing a comprehensive portfolio plan, determining Microsoft’s level of participation in events, identifying budget efficiencies, and creating a design language that translates across all Microsoft businesses to align with the new company branding.

Over the course of his career, Gotsis has witnessed the natural life-cycle or “arch” of trending events, so he and his team seek out events that are “on the uptick.” The portfolio reinvention involves pivoting investments toward events  like Web Summit and Viva Tech, and toward opportunities to change audience perception.

“Some attendees, especially younger audiences, may have a different perception of Microsoft than is the reality. That understanding helps shape our narrative at events,” says Gotsis. “We go beyond traditional showcases and demonstrations and produce exhibits and speaking engagements on topics around ethics in artificial intelligence and how technology is enabling advancements to fight climate change and how our products are designed to be more inclusive and accessible. We talk about diversity and inclusion. Those messages and initiatives are not only very important to the company, but we find they’re also very important, and resonate better, with our audiences than going in and talking simply about tech solutions.

“We have a company mission statement, ‘Empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more,’ and we push that strategy end-to-end,” he says. “You see that come to life in our vertical narratives in how we do business everyday with each other, internally, and how we show up at events, as well.”

His team has also shifted away from exhibiting at trade shows in the traditional sense, instead focusing on creating industry-relevant experience design. Part of this approach is one “bound in product truth,” he says, where solutions are presented through the voice of the customer or a partner telling the story through a business use case, and what the outcomes were.  

“When they are 20 feet away from us, we want the attendee, press, customer or analyst to look up and say, ‘Oh yeah, Microsoft gets retail,’” Gotsis says. “Or if we’re at a manufacturing event, we want to build out a digital factory and explain connected IoT and all those things in the context of what folks are used to working in, what their comfort zone is, and how Microsoft and our partners can play a role.”

And with a call to “empower local,” the team ensures that assets developed by the global organization, like creative work and signage for tier one events, are leveraged across Microsoft’s business landscape, so subsidiaries in regions across the globe can execute a consistent look and feel while localizing the content to their specific markets.  

Like many marketers, Gotsis’ biggest challenge is tracking the life cycle of the lead. It’s a tough nut to crack in an industry where a sales cycle can take two years to complete, across multiple touchpoints. 

“There are so many touchpoints that a company can have with their customers, how can you attribute an interaction on a trade show floor, or a moment at an event, and say it’s because of that moment they decided to make a purchase?” he says. “How can you measure effectiveness beyond the go-to brand metrics, like number of leads, qualified leads, and social media impressions—those are brand qualifying metrics that are great, but do they really demonstrate value, impact and ROI?”

But perhaps a more pressing issue for Gotsis surrounds the next generation, and educating young people about maneuvering in marketing at large organizations and about the role of events as a strategic component of marketing.

“Events are one of the oldest methods in how people interact with brands—I always liken it to the ancient Greeks at the agora, trading and selling their wares in person,” he says. “We need to be evangelists for the practice and help up-level the perception of its role.” 

With a “together each one of us accomplishes more” mindset, Gotsis is the man to crack the code. He encourages his team to challenge the status quo. “You get one opportunity with this life so why not do your best?” he says. “Be the most honest and authentic human you can be and you will have no regrets.” 

We’ll play on his team.

DREAM TEAM TITLE: SVP-Corporate Events
CURRENT TITLE: Senior Director-Global Event Strategy, SAP
WHY WE WANT HER: Her team developed and pitched (successfully) a seismic transformation of SAPPHIRE NOW, a content-first shift that will ripple across the company’s entire ecosystem.

Nicola Kastner knows a thing or two about the efficacy of events. Amid a two-decade career working on the agency side, she attended a session at the MPI World Education Conference in her home city of Toronto that would change the course of her career as she knew it. 

“I took a session focused on event marketing strategy, and it was this light bulb moment for me where I realized there was a whole different side to events—one that was data driven and strategic in nature, versus logistics,” Kastner says.

Armed with that mindset, she launched her own event marketing consulting practice in 2012, taking on client SAP, and working for the company in Latin America on strategic initiatives before joining SAP on a full-time basis nearly three years ago. Kastner works within the SAP Global Events Organization in a role created by the cmo focused on ensuring that the company’s tier one events portfolio and proprietary portfolios are as effective as possible. 

The global events team is responsible for 30 of SAP’s most important events each year. These range from corporate-wide proprietary events like SAPPHIRE NOW and TechEd to stand-alone proprietary events from SAP’s acquired brands such as SAP Ariba Live, or SuccessConnect. The team is also responsible for internal event delivery such as sales kick-off meetings along with its largest third party event presence at events such as MWC or SXSW.

Kastner’s team has begun the implementation of a complete transformation of SAPPHIRE NOW, part of a multi-year journey for SAP’s entire portfolio that shifts the focus from it being a product-led event to one that is customer-business-outcome driven. “What is most rewarding about this is that it is a content-led approach that connects to every other content experience we are creating throughout the year, so SAPPHIRE NOW becomes one touchpoint in a connected series and eliminates the random content moments that often happen with events,” she says. 

It’s a strategy developed in partnership with her colleague Johann Wrede, who leads content marketing at SAP, and one that is helping break down the traditional “silos” within marketing and communications organizations, bringing two key components of the business together in a powerful way, she says. 

Calling it a lighthouse moment for SAP, she says, “If we can do it there, then it cascades out to so many other places as well.” And it ensures events are integrated into the rest of the marketing mix. A dream certainly for Kastner, and for the modern event marketer as well.

DREAM TEAM TITLE: VP-Event Strategy
CURRENT TITLE: VP-Corporate Marketing, Strategic Events 
WHY WE WANT HER: She’s a tried and true brand evangelist for Salesforce, understanding the importance of company values and culture to win over the next generation of event attendees.

As an art history major, Karin Flores thought she’d work in museums her whole life. But a first job at an agency in San Francisco working on trade shows lured her into the events world. It was when she began work on events for Salesforce that she fell in love with the company and its “Ohana” culture (Hawaiian for “the family you choose”). She made the leap to the client side, and has been running marketing strategy and events for Salesforce for the past nine years.

Under Flores’ tutelage are teams that work on proprietary events, like Dreamforce and Connections; third party events, like TrailheaDX for the developer community; and corporate sponsorships. Leveraging Salesforce tools, naturally, the teams examine data closely, identifying areas of growth among certain audiences to then grow their footprint at those events.

“Salesforce is a very event-driven company, and we take that philosophy and apply it to different marketing tactics, and corporate sponsorships is one of those areas where we do that, where we take the experience and storytelling and bring it to life in different avenues,” Flores says.

This may mean activating in an unexpected channel, like its partnership with Live Nation on festival programs and activations, including Lollapalooza, where Salesforce can interact directly with consumers—an important piece of the puzzle for Flores, because, as she puts it, the b-to-b landscape is very much b-to-b-to-c now. It may also mean activating a “nimble,” wild idea, like one two years ago during Dreamforce, when Sonoma County faced devastating wildfires. In the wake of Dreamfest at AT&T Park in San Francisco, Salesforce left its stage up, brought together business leaders and hosted a benefit concert with big names in music—with all proceeds going toward fire relief. 

Salesforce’s famous and progressive corporate culture infiltrates its entire b-to-b event program as key touchpoints to engage and win over customers and attendees. Several years ago, the company launched the Salesforce Equality Awards, a one-day customer event that honors leaders in equality. “It helps showcase what separates Salesforce, what makes us special and it brings our values to life,” Flores says.

The Salesforce Ohana groups help guide an inclusive event program, with Abilityforce, Boldforce and other groups who provide guidance on the needs of different audiences.

“We were the first to incorporate gender neutral bathrooms in all of our programs, and offer personalized pronouns,” Flores says. “It’s very important for us as a company and this ties back to our values of everyone who is part of Salesforce is welcome and feels part of Ohana, and you can be your authentic self with Salesforce.”

Sign us up.

DREAM TEAM TITLE: Senior Director-Engagement Marketing
CURRENT TITLE: Director-Experiential Marketing
WHY WE WANT HER: She is firmly planting an experiential strategy within Zillow Group’s fast-growing b-to-b events program, ensuring there is a consistent thread of messaging across the portfolio.

It’s not often someone can say they’ve moved mountains before. But that’s just the sort of sky-is-the-limit thinking Courtney Hutchison brings to her work at Zillow Group as director of experiential marketing. 

After working production on entertainment properties like the Oscars, Hutchison helped manage logistics on two Olympics, including the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, which in 2010, faced a big problem: no snow. Her team helped manage a 24-hour operation that involved trucking in hay barrels and scheduling helicopter deliveries of snow to build a halfpipe and moguls. “I was driving a forklift unloading hay bales for four hours while we didn’t have an operator, and then on the radio with helicopter comms teams telling our sports production team where they were flying in snow—crazy, but it happened,” Hutchison says.

That “do whatever it takes” attitude would lead her to activate events for Tough Mudder, and, ultimately, get her hired by real estate media company Zillow in 2017 to help invigorate the growing brand’s events and work among content, design and event management teams to develop and lead long-term planning cycles and strategy. Hutchison works alongside her “other half,” Toddy Dyre, director of events, whose team focuses on event logistics. Together, their teams manage 300 events a year that Zillow either owns or activates at, a dozen of which are Zillow forums. These forums include everything from internal leadership off-sites with senior directors and top brass, to external events for the brand’s various businesses.

One of those events is Zillow’s largest external event, Premier Agent Forum for real estate professionals, which has quadrupled in six years to 2,000 attendees. “It’s evolved from offering business updates and some light networking into full workshops and breakout tracks, experiential hubs, evening events, fitness offerings—the whole gamut of what conferences have become in this world,” she says.

Hutchison’s team has taken a lead role in transforming one of Zillow’s largest internal events, the All Company Forum, that began as a basic annual meeting and evolved into a three-day conference in 2017 called ZG Week. There are dedicated content tracks, keynotes, maker spaces, learning labs with drop-in content; and a favorite, the ZG ping-pong tournament. 

Like facing that snowless mountain, Hutchison knows the importance of teamwork and in integrating teams and key stakeholders better to strengthen events in the b-to-b space. 

“It’s about bringing cohesion and that thread through everything we’re doing from a programming perspective to the very first email at the beginning of an attendee journey, and developing a framework for how we’re going to make decisions—and then, bringing together internal events teams and stakeholders to advocate for our audience,” she says. 

A mindset worth the grade.

DREAM TEAM TITLE: Director-Business Partnerships
CURRENT TITLE: Partner Sponsorship Engagement Manager
WHY WE WANT HER: She is reimagining traditional b-to-b partner sponsorships for Cisco Live, ensuring that “exhibit halls” are, instead, relevant, engaging networking zones.

Gretchen Nakamura’s path to events began in hospitality management, where she managed catering at the Dallas Convention Center and Il Fornaio restaurant company. Those experiences led to roles in corporate event planning, including working as partner engagement manager in the CRM division at PeopleSoft,  before she joined Cisco as partner sponsorship engagement manager for Cisco Live U.S. and the Cisco Live events globally. 

Her background in hospitality influences the way she approaches her work on Cisco Live events. She embraces the role of servicing Cisco partners because, as she puts it, “They’re our sponsors, and they’re our attendees.” Nakamura is responsible for growing sponsorship revenue and participation. “My team has grown revenue and the number of partners really based on what we’re offering and how we’re reimagining their participation,” she says. “We’re thinking about sponsorships differently than the traditional way.”

Cisco is embracing a larger industry trend of providing customized sponsorship packages versus those “off the shelf.” Her team works closely with sponsors to understand their strategy and objectives, whether it be a focus on thought leadership, or engagement with c-level attendees. Understanding the goals of partners deeply and keeping on top of that as a company helps Cisco then manage the challenge of measuring sponsorship impact, because the sales cycle is long and the partner ecosystem, and the relationships with partners, can evolve.

“That’s where our growth is. The partners are trusting us, and we’re listening to their needs and incorporating that into our offers,” Nakamura says. “If the partners are successful, then the attendee is getting what they need, and then, Cisco, and the event, benefits from that.”

One of those ideas took place at a recent show in the World of Solutions expo hall at Cisco Live, where her teams built out a partner visitor or “destination” center that included lounge spaces and built-in bars for espresso or beer in an environment conducive of casual conversation and connection with customers. Another strategy involved a park setting built for sponsors into the show floor with yard games and outdoor seating. 

Nakamura would like the industry to do less “calling out” of sponsors, in favor of more organic activities between partners and customers that deliver the same result in a less formal manner. 

She also sees partner activity as more of an exercise in networking, delivering content in new and exciting ways that bring partners and customers together, but maybe also, partners and partners together. 

“Trade shows have been kind of the same for 30 years, so how can we flip it on its head and look at it in a different way, and how do we live our lives every day, you know, walking down the street, getting a cup of coffee—how do we connect with people?” she says. 

We’re betting she has a pretty good idea.