Valerie Strehle

Director of Events
Workiva

As the Director of Marketing Events at Workiva (NYSE:WK), Valerie Strehle is responsible for the vision, strategy, and execution of the Workiva event portfolio, including workshops, sponsorships, and field marketing experiential events to align with operational goals and objectives. She leads the annual user conference, Workiva Amplify, now in its ninth year and drawing more than 2,200 attendees. Being involved with Amplify since its beginning, she loves focusing on the changing attendee journey year over year and creating a positive, memorable experience for attendees.

Recently, Workiva has expanded their event presence in London and Amsterdam, among other EMEA countries, and Valerie looks forward to the challenge of planning and executing events in those markets. She knows the relationships built with CEMA members will help her in this new journey. With such a unique role at Workiva, Valerie values CEMA for allowing her and her team to visit many of the CEMA study tours every year to gain valuable knowledge from other peer events.

Valerie currently resides on Lake Panorama in Panora, Iowa, with her husband, Josh, and three children — Drake, Cooper, and Vivyan. In her spare time, she loves to spend time focusing on fitness, friends, and enjoying summers on the lake.

CEMA Gold Member Executive Profile

John Boyko
President Of Structure Exhibits

As the Owner and President of Structure Exhibits (established in 2003) John brings over 22 years of experience in the Trade Show and Event world. In the beginning of his tenure his background centered around 2D and 3D theatre & set design. He was introduced to the trade show business in 1996 by a friend. John was intrigued by the design and architecture of exhibits. The idea that the exhibits needed to look permanent but still maintain lightweight characteristics and pack down into shipping crates for re-use at the next show was an interesting concept to John.

Taking knowledge he learned working on the show floor as part of the set-up crew, while attending college, he began Structure Exhibits with a few partners. He then grew it into a design, marketing, A/V and custom manufacturing firm over the past 17 years. He has fused many of the trade show services into a “All-In-House” one-stop shop for all exhibiting needs. This includes exhibit design, graphic design and output, LED Video Walls, custom hard wall systems, fabric, video production and lighting design, just to name a few. “Combining all of the services in house allows for a better, more seamless design which enables us to not only have more control over quality but provide better price points as we do not need to subcontract products from other vendors.”

Today, John Boyko and the team at Structure Exhibits continue to focus on one stop shop solutions while integrating the latest technology and interactive experience platforms to their custom and rental exhibit solutions.

Thank You! to October CEMA e-Newsletter Sponsor Gold Member InVision Communications

Think Beyond “The Sliver in Time”

When a software client came to us looking for efficiencies across its two-year cycle of events, we responded with a consistent, branded program that could be scaled across multiple events, and deployed across campaigns that ran in-between events. This is a story we hear often. Clients are looking for ways to drive efficiencies among a suite of events, demonstrate ROI per event, meanwhile tying event KPIs to strategic business outcomes ongoing – all of this without compromising the audience experience.

Learn how to drive efficiencies across your portfolio of events by transcending the “sliver in time” to engage your audience early and often – thereby demonstrating ROI, driving measurable results, and meeting strategic business objectives. Download our approach here.

CEMA Education Series Presents: The Theory of Creativity

The CEMA Educational Series presented Duncan Wardle and his Innovation Workshop last week in Chicago, to a room filled with event marketers who walked away with an actionable set of Creative Behaviors and Innovation Tools that will immediately foster a culture of innovation and creativity in their company. Active participation taught the lucky attendees to learn how to address the 5 biggest obstacles to innovation and creativity in the workplace and how to change their cultures forever. Thank you to Choose Chicago for their sponsorship of Duncan and their incredible hospitality. And thank you to our amazing sponsors, Corporate Event News, Sheraton Grand Chicago, Invision Communications, Signature Boston, Eventcore, McCormick Place Chicago and PSAV. Attendees received 9.5 CE credits.

Read What Industry Experts (You and Your CEMA Friends!) Say About Their Favorite Destination Cities

CEMA’s Destination Marketing Organization

Have you ever needed information on a city for either a unique small conference, executive retreat, user conference or a citywide program and not have a lot of time to research? Well here is your resource! Check out the October DMO of the month – VisitDallas on the CEMA website and next months DMO will feature SF Travel.

Each month, a CEMA member will feature their city (either US or Canada) and show why their destination offers a suite of services to help make planning an event, conference or citywide a breeze. As we accumulate information about key cities, we will build the library of options for you to learn from. Are we missing a city you’re interested in? Let us know and we’ll invite that city to participate! For more information please contact Stacey@CEMAonline.com.

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A brand-new benefit to CEMA membership is coming your way in 2020. A destination organization, often referred to as a destination marketing or management organization, convention and visitor’s bureau or tourism board, is responsible for promoting a community as an attractive travel destination and enhancing its public image as a dynamic place to live and work.

Have you ever needed information on a city for either a unique small conference, executive retreat, user conference or a citywide program and not have a lot of time to research? Well here is your resource! Check out the October DMO of the month – VisitDallas on the CEMA website and next months DMO will feature SF Travel.

Each month, a CEMA member will feature their city (either US or Canada) and show why their destination offers a suite of services to help make planning an event, conference or citywide a breeze. As we accumulate information about key cities, we will build the library of options for you to learn from. Are we missing a city you’re interested in? Let us know and we’ll invite that city to participate! For more information please contact Stacey@CEMAonline.com.

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It’s Time for YOU to Make an Impact at CEMA

Your unique expertise and enthusiasm is in big demand. You’ll see following the Task Forces we’re initiating soon, along with a description of the purpose of each Task Force. Please email Stacey@CEMAonline.com and let her know for which Task Force you’d like to participate in.

CEMA Summit 2020 Content Task Force: – Our CEMA Summit 2020 Content Task Force will be Chaired this year by Julie Lynch. We now need dedicated members who will help define and bring amazing energy and ideas to CEMA Summit 2020.

CEMA Giving Back Task Force: – This task force will take limited time yet is incredibly important as we decide and define our purposeful giving for 2020

CEMA First Timer Engagement: –

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We’d Like to Hear Your Input

Do you have a question you’d like to pose to our CEMA members? One of the unique benefits of CEMA is the opportunity we provide you to ask your esteemed event marketing colleagues a question to help you answer a question or solve a problem. CEMA members will demonstrate their expertise through their answers provided.

To access this benefit, log in as a member and navigate to Ask CEMA in Resources to ask your question. CEMA members will answer your question!

We also offer Premium Memberships with some amazing extra benefits for your company. Please contact Stacey at Stacey@CEMAonline.com regarding many membership questions.

This month’s Ask CEMA question:

“My team is looking for recommendations for some sort of project plan software. We currently are just using a google sheet and it is not doing the job for us.”

Log into your CEMA membership and recommend your favorite project plan software for one of our CEMA members. Go to question >>