Our event management team rounded out Q4 with 10 events total, making it 30 events under our belt for the year. We had the pleasure of working with a few long-time clients over the past few months, to put a new spin on their event visions.

We also enjoyed creating experiences with new clients, who made up half of this quarter’s events—among them are Tatari, Sapphire, and Unbabel (though, they’ve been a partner on the Speaker side of our business for two years). 

In Q4, we worked with new client Tatari on five client experiences in Denver, San Francisco,  Los Angeles, and New York. Originally, we planned to bring their TV-focused New York City conference to life in October, but COVID-19 had other plans for us. Changing course, the Tatari team kept us on board to assist in intimate, high-end client events ranging from a Colorado wine tasting, to a box at the Outside Lands music festival, to, most recently, a New York Knicks luxury box suite, where fans saw Steph Curry break the record for most 3-pointers in one game. We look forward to working with Tatari more in the new year and in June, executing their original conference.

We also had the opportunity to work with longtime speaker-side client Unbabel on their two-day global conference, LangOps Universe in late October. The event urged attendees to #TranslateFearlessly and the range of sessions considered how language and AI can boost customer operations and business development. Speakers from ESPN, Zendesk, and JetBlue challenged attendees to break through language barriers without fear and create a positive impact on customers around the world. 

A few days later, in early November, the Sapphire Vision Summit took to the virtual arena—via Zoom and Splash—to discuss how to “How to Achieve Sustainability at Scale,” “Avoiding the Great Resignation,” and “Reimagining Customer Experience in the Age of Personalization.” (Interested in hearing more? Read our full recap here!) 

Where else were we this quarter?

• In mid-October, we were thrilled to work with Lightspeed Venture Partners and Rich Talent Group on our third event together: Building Tomorrow’s Boardroom, Today. This invite-only, closed-door conversation focused on driving change for LatinX Leaders in the Boardroom. We had the honor of working with Keynote Speaker Senator Alex Padilla, and absolutely loved playing a role in the mission to get under-represented groups a seat at the table. Our clients inspire us each day! 

• In November, we helped OneReq with two installments of their OneReq Summit: DEI in Recruiting series, which brought together talent leaders and recruiting teams to address the most common barriers to DEI. Impact-oriented keynotes and panels discussed best practices for reaching beyond boundaries to develop recruiting teams’ DEI competencies.

• We were happy to be back with Blend onsite in Pebble Beach at Forum 2021 in mid-November. Sessions focused on the future of banking as personalized, proactive, and data-driven. Attendees had to show proof of their vaccine at check-in and were treated to a presentation by Freakonomics Co-Author, Stephen J. Dubner. 

• To close out 2021, veteran client SaaStr held their annual SaaStr Scale event, giving attendees a chance to absorb best practices for scaling their businesses from some of today’s top revenue leaders in SaaS. The audience tuned in to hear the ‘Playbooks’ of speakers from companies including Zoom, Waze, Box, Asana, and Calendly. 

We continue to enjoy playing a role in elevating the voices featured by our clients at their events. Here are just a few of the incredible speakers we had a chance to work with:

• Ahmad Wright, Head of Inclusion HR, Packard Foundation

• Hon. Aida Alvarez, Business Leader, Public Servant, and Philanthropist

• Alex Padilla, U.S. Senator for California

• Amy Hayes, VP Global Learning and Development, Facebook

• Andrea Perez, Global VP/GM Women’s, Jordan Brand, Nike

• Anne Raimondi, COO, Asana

• Archana Agrawal, CMO, Airtable

• Elena Gomez. Chief Financial Officer, Toast

• Kendra Wrightson, Head of Sales Enablement, Waze

• Mamuna Oyofo, VP of Product, Shopify

• Michelle Poler, Founder & Author, Hello Fears

• ​​Nicholas Thompson, CEO, The Atlantic

• Tigran Sloyan, Founder & CEO, CodeSignal

• Whitnee Hawthorne, Vice President, Customer Support, JetBlue

In total, we worked with over 650 speakers this year and are proud to say 43% of those were women and 41% were BIPOC. We look forward to continuing to give more diverse voices a stage in 2022, and are prioritizing that as a company-wide goal in 2022. 

We are feeling so proud of the work we’ve done this past year. We’re heading into the new year with happy clients, insights gained and lessons learned. Including a few lessons learned below:

• Even if conference plans have to change, we’re seeing clients still want to use those budgets to foster a connection with their customers and/or prospects in smaller, lower-risk events or outings. 

• At in-person events, showing proof of vaccine at check-in or registration is becoming less of a question and more of the standard. 

• There is so much appetite for returning to in-person events and certainly ways to make it work—both as an attendee and event organizer. Venues want attendees to come back, so they’ve made spaces as flexible as possible with indoor/outdoor options. We love to see it!

We look forward to bringing more events to life in what is already shaping up to be a busy 2022!

Have an event you are looking to bring to life? We’d love to help! Email us at hello@credpr.com.