Experience

Strategic Direction Leadership

  • Contributed to strategic planning projects for higher education associations amid recession, pandemic, technological change, membership fluctuations, and more
  • Initiated innovative and alternative revenue generating projects to stabilize budgets in questionable economic times
    • Contributed at a strategic level to stand up additional business within non-profit
    • Part of leadership team through rebranding of association assets and value proposition
  • Recruited to work on three-year term advisory committee for Buffalo, NY convention & visitors bureau

Budgeting: Finance/ Expense Control

  • Prepare monthly or quarterly financial reports with narrative for board to use in strategic guidance of association complete with financial results, forecasted revenue, and action plans for achieving success
  • Prepare monthly reports for committee meetings noting progress on budget and needs assessment
  • Set budget expectations for larger organization, track revenue and expenses, alert team of major changes or shifts in expectations
  • Personal expense reporting and set-up of registration system to impact financial reporting
  • Grant writing and management

Communication:  Reporting/Management

  • Prepare monthly reports for committee meetings noting progress on strategic plan, projects or work areas
  • Regular user of voice mail, email, social media, instant messaging and other technology with both internal and external clients
  • Author of newsletter articles for both company and volunteer organizations
  • Facilitator of staff meetings, volunteer committees, and session presenter
  • Participant and leader of committees to develop multi-day events

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging: Implementation/Training

  • Strategic work to ensure opportunities for increased representation
  • Implementation of initiatives to support an inclusive organization from the workplace to events we produce for volunteers and guests
  • Collaboration with internal staff and strategic task force volunteers to make change
  • Participation in training, workshops, and certification to advance the work

People Management

  • Conducted search and hiring of both student and professional staff
  • Experience with managing 2-40 team members including scheduling, training, mid-year and annual reviews for students, professional staff, and volunteers both in-person and remote
  • Meet one-on-one and with department regularly to review operations and strategic plan progress
  • Worked with college students (graduate and undergraduate) with student academic center check-ins to gain practical experience and internship credit
  • Managed staff through performance improvement plans

Sales & Marketing: Operations/Customer Service

  • Led sales force of four with supervision of additional staff of five for lead cultivation, relationship management, and closure of contracts/sponsorships
  • Exceeded sponsorship budget/goals up to 25%, met revenue goals for event registration
  • Assist in development of new programs with best Return on Investment and impact on bottom line
  • Participate in yield decision regarding rate structure to maximize revenue without losing market share both long term and in-the-week for-the-week
  • Personally managed over $400,000 in rooms sales for guests of the resort on annual basis (early 2000’s dollar value) in addition to catering and auxiliary sales
  • Develop, design and distribute collateral pieces, trade show appearances, web and ecommunications
  • Train and monitor team members for exceptional customer service

Special Events: Organization/Execution

  • Launched first-ever virtual conference and then hybrid conference during pandemic
  • Multi-day $2M, flagship annual conference lead staff with 18 month lead time and volunteer stakeholders, 100+ speakers, 60 sponsors, multiple vendors in new location
  • Directed RFP process, conducted site tours, and multi-year contracting for annual and regional conferences, seminars and institutes
  • Sourced, developed content, and delivered several smaller events for 7-300 person including executive team meetings, board meetings, institutes and seminars
  • Collaboration with stakeholders to create and execute event
  • Speaker management for 100+ sessions – proposal collection, jury process, notification, coordination, communication, and delivery
  • Special events development, promotion and execution for resort as director of sales
  • Golf outing chair and Business After Hours committee member for Chamber of Commerce
  • MPI MidAmerica Conference planning team 5 years harnessing 30 volunteers from four states
  • IU Alumni Association of Monroe County – Vice President, student functions, fundraising

Technology: Tools/Software

  • Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite, Google Apps, Calendaring, Slack, and others.
  • Association Management System – Daily usage for event registration, member data, reports/dashboards, and troubleshooting
  • Conference Apps – Review, assess, installation, upkeep and onboarding for Sched, Socio/WebEx, and EventMobi
  • Administrative management for virtual meeting tools including Microsoft Teams, Zoom, On24, Cvent and attendee on many others
  • Podcast producer using tools to record, edit, transcript, and launch to multiple streaming platforms
  • Logo management for sponsors and graphic design using Canva, coordination with graphic designer to achieve high-res materials
  • Social media management with tools like Buffer for engagement, analytics, and posting to multiple platforms to executive association’s other small business strategy