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CEMA Summit takes place at Hyatt Regency Salt Lake City. (Courtesy of Hyatt)
This year’s CEMA Summit, Aug. 6-8 at the Hyatt Regency Salt Lake City in Utah, will welcome keynote speakers from outside the organization of corporate event marketers, but the bulk of the educational programming will be delivered by CEMA members themselves.
Members of the CEMA community are experts in navigating the recent ups and downs in the business events industry, said Sandra Marcus, vice president, strategy & operations at CEMA. “CEMA at its core, and it will be no different at CEMA Summit, is all about that peer-to-peer discussion and sharing from one deeply experienced person to another,” Marcus told Convene.
Taking its “Elevate Your Vision” theme from the Wasatch Mountains surrounding Salt Lake City, CEMA Summit’s education program is divided into three tracks: elevate your strategy, elevate your analytics, and elevate your team (and you).
The 12 breakout sessions, again led by CEMA members and designed to spark a dialogue among attendees, will focus on different aspects within those three areas, Marcus said, based on what issues members have been saying are integral to their work. Here are examples from each track:
- “Success by the Book: How to Develop KPIs with Metrics that Matter” (data)
- “Getting the Green Light: Secrets to Executive Buy-In on Your Event Strategy” (strategy)
- “Leadership in Times of Continuous Change” (team)
Four design labs — experiential, active work sessions — will give attendees an opportunity to dive deeper into such topics as the data hero’s journey, DEI, experiential design, and the corporate influencer.
For this year’s Summit, organizers listened to member feedback and made small tweaks to the agenda, Marcus said. Organizers built in more collaboration time by increasing the length of the 12 breakout sessions, reducing the number of keynote sessions from four to three, and adding in more networking events both during the day and after hours.
“We know that this ‘informal time’ is just as important to our members as the formal learning,” Marcus said. “The value of attending CEMA Summit is the opportunities it provides for attendees to learn from one another.”
CEMA Keynote Speakers
Julie Williamson
Opening, Aug. 7
Julie Williamson, Ph.D., Chief Growth Enabler at Karrikins Group
“Go Beyond the Task List and Make Strategy Part of Your Business-as-Usual Mindset”
Natalie Nixon
Morning, Aug. 8
Natalie Nixon, Ph.D., Creativity Strategist and CEO, Figure 8 Thinking
“How to Maximize the Business ROI of Creativity — and Justify it to Your C-Suite”
Michael Dominguez
Afternoon, Aug. 8
- Michael Dominguez, President and CEO Associated Luxury Hotels International
- Junior Tauvaa, Chief Business Officer PCMA
“2023 Industry Forum”