The events years
Before therapy I spent 15 years building communities and producing events. I started at a dining club for tech founders, led community at TechDay and The Next Web, then ran my own company, Dahlia Green Events.
Founders and CEOs from Reddit, Slack, Kickstarter, Foursquare, Duolingo, Birchbox and Refinery29 came on stage to tell the personal, make-or-break stories behind their companies. Partners and sponsors included Google, Amazon, PayPal, American Airlines and NYU, alongside thousands of startups.
The Next Web and TNW Momentum
Hired as TNW's first U.S. employee to build the brand from scratch. I grew a New York community from zero to 5,000+, produced 24 community events and a 2,000+ person conference at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.
The part I'm proudest of was Momentum, a conference built around candid talks. Founders were asked not for their success story but for the turning points, the personal and sometimes painful moments that changed everything, followed by small roundtables with attendees.
TechDay
Part of a team of four that built North America's largest startup event: 15,000+ attendees in New York and 700+ startups exhibiting, then expanded to Los Angeles and Washington, DC. Along the way it picked up government awards and the team rang the Nasdaq bell.
NY EdTech Week
One of the largest education technology festivals in the world, bringing educators, founders, investors and policymakers together. I managed 300+ speakers and redesigned check-in so thousands of attendees waited no more than 8 minutes.
Meet Magento NY
We turned New World Stages, a Broadway theater, into a conference venue, with Amazon and PayPal as sponsors. The format worked well enough that it was reused the following year, and it helped rebuild the Magento community in New York ahead of Adobe's $1.68B acquisition.
Travel Disruption Summit
1,000+ attendees, from American Airlines to blockchain startups, with programming built around useful conversations. The first year came in 52% under budget, and it grew 30% year over year.
Thinkful company retreat
The first annual retreat for a fully remote team. A record blizzard hit the week of the event, so we rebuilt the programming on the fly, and 93% of employees said it exceeded their expectations.
Amusemi
Where it started: a team of two growing a dining club for tech founders to 1,000+ members. Dinners, picnics and a lot of one-on-one conversations, which is still my favorite format.
What events taught me about people
A good event is mostly figuring out what people actually need, making them feel welcome, and staying calm when something goes wrong in front of a room full of people. I've handled travel disasters, family emergencies, upset guests and a blizzard, and I spent two years asking founders to talk honestly about their hardest moments. All of that comes with me into therapy.
I'm occasionally open to talks or workshops for teams on burnout, change and second careers. Email me if that's of interest.
Event photography includes work by Dan Taylor, Beto Ruiz Alonso and AM Media Group.