Our Organization:

Board Member at Large

Chief Growth Officer, MC2

With over 20 years of experience in the event space, Ben Nazario is no stranger to building unique and strategic programs around any brand and its industry tailored to the identified customer segment. Currently with MC² as its Chief Growth Officer, Ben’s primary focus resides in overseeing the company’s domestic and international growth through multiple facets of the business including Sales, Business Development, Marketing, Creative and Strategy. With Ben’s addition to the board, CEMA will see a leadership figure challenge the means of normality through his charisma, energy, and passion for reaching new heights.

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Board Member at Large

Global Director, Events + Experiences, Celonis

Heather Schneider is a strategic event professional passionate about aligning business objectives with impactful experiences. With expertise in event marketing, business alignment, operations management, and data-driven decision-making, she excels at streamlining processes, enhancing attendee experiences, and maximizing the business impact of event portfolios.

Adept at managing complex, large-scale events, Heather transforms them into powerful marketing tools that deliver measurable results. Known for embracing challenges and staying ahead of industry trends, she is committed to pushing boundaries to create experiences that exceed expectations. As a CEMA Advisory Board member, Heather is dedicated to advancing the events industry through innovation and collaboration.

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Board Member at Large

Head of Events, Jobber

Fifteen years in events have taken Maggie Barton Baird across nonprofit, agency, and technology roles, and that breadth now informs her leadership at Jobber. As Head of Event Marketing, she creates programs that bring home service professionals together while boosting awareness and revenue across North America.

Maggie believes events are the heartbeat of a brand, a philosophy that has earned her recognition including a place on Edify Magazine’s Top 40 Under 40. Beyond her day role, she shares insights as a guest lecturer and commentator, contributing to the broader dialogue about events as catalysts for connection.

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Board Member at Large

Director of Sales, Worldwide Accounts, Hilton

Jessica Colmenares is Director of Sales, Worldwide Accounts at Hilton. She is responsible for managing a portfolio of customers, mostly in the technology segment, to help them align their priorities and find the perfect solution for their meeting & event needs. Jessica is passionate about delivering meaningful and memorable experiences for her customers and finding innovative solutions that support their objectives. Her proven ability to build relationships beyond the point of sale has allowed her to engage differently at higher levels of her customers' organizations. She is a team player who shares ideas and approaches that have worked, willing to take advice to think differently, and always has an appetite to learn. She is a team player who values the gift of collaboration and is committed to achieving common goals.

For the past 27 years, Jessica has worked for Hilton. She’s been a member of the CEMA community for 11 years. The connections and community of CEMA have afforded her the opportunity to stretch herself and understand how the initial thoughts, planning, and execution of in person engagements have lasting impact well beyond the event. Jessica resides in the Bay Area with her husband Paul and has two active boys. She has a passion for running, the beach, and travel.

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Board Member at Large

Director, Global Partner Engagements, Dell Technologies

Kara Wooten is a passionate and pragmatic marketing professional with more than 20 years of marketing experience, specializing in strategic planning for Dell Technologies’. Driven to create content and experiences that make an impact, Kara has an avid customer-first approach to everything she does, from vendor management, production and design, communications, event planning, and execution. She thrives in fast-paced, changing environments and is not afraid of ambiguity. A problem solver by nature, Kara runs to chaos. She is currently responsible for developing Dell Technologies’ global partner event strategy and how Dell tells its transformative story to the marketplace through world-class events and engagements. In addition to setting the global strategy, Kara and her team also drive efficiencies and consistency in experience to Dell Technologies top-tier partners at all advisory boards, and worldwide programs and industry events in their regional field teams.

Before her current role, Kara spent her first four years helping to build the Dell Technologies energy vertical globally and the next four years driving campaigns and engagements for Dell Technologies OEM North America. A University of Houston alumna with a BA in Marketing, Kara has a diverse background across the oil and gas and technology sectors. Her proficiency extends to product and partnership marketing, field marketing, strategic planning, and event management.

Outside of her professional endeavors, Kara enjoys life in Tomball, TX, with her husband Bryan and their three sons. The family’s passion for sports, outdoor activities, and live music enriches their lives beyond the boardroom.

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Board Member at Large

Sr. Director, Regional Cisco Lives and New Market Opportunities, Cisco

Kathleen is an established leader in B2B events and currently leads Cisco’s international Cisco Live programs. Before Cisco, Kathleen led Splunk’s Global Event Marketing function after building Box, Inc.’s global event program from the ground up. While at Box, Kathleen established Box’s annual BoxWorks conference, growing the program from a single ballroom to the Moscone Center. She is passionate about team development and believes in the power of experimentation and trying bold ideas. Kathleen came to CEMA looking for additional education and mentorship during her tenure at Box and continues to believe in the power of the CEMA community.

Kathleen can generally be found in the San Francisco Bay Area with her 3 children, husband, and geriatric goldendoodle, Hobbs. She has an unflattering relationship with Wordle and a very specific and deep knowledge of SF Bay Area volleyball tournaments.

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Board Member at Large

Director, Strategic Events - Customer Portfolio, Okta

Katie Batten is a seasoned event marketing professional with 15+ years experience. She currently leads the customer portfolio team at Okta, directing end-to-end strategy and execution for Oktane, Okta's annual customer conference, the global Okta Identity Tour series, and the tier 1 global third party events.

In addition to her seven years at Okta, Katie previously led corporate and trade show event strategies at Jive Software, Achievers, and the HR Certification Institute. She currently resides in the Bay Area and holds her CMP and an MTA from The George Washington University.

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Board Member at Large

Senior Vice President Marketing & Brand, Invision Communications

Laliv Hadar is a high-performing 20+ year B2B marketing and communications executive, hailing from prominent media companies and agencies, and high-profile, venture-backed tech brands. For over 5 years, she has lead marketing and brand for InVision, a 30+ year agency specializing in integrated brand experiences and experiential marketing.

Laliv has a successful track record crafting a marketing strategy, communications, programs and sales enablement that drive brand and revenue growth. An industry leader, she's served on the board of the American Marketing Association (AMA), possesses broad industry relationships, and has proven herself as a successful leader and people developer/mentor. Prior to InVision, Laliv held senior marketing roles at leading brands such as Fandom by Wikia, BabyCenter, Yahoo!, Amobee, AOL, and Time Warner.

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Board Member at Large

Sr. Director of Corporate Events, Programs, and Customer Advocacy, Cloudflare

Professionally, Leslie Hasvold has been in the Bay Area event industry for 25 years and her career has spanned from small surgeon trainings to large scale technical user conferences. She has had the pleasure of working across the globe and in all elements of the event programming cycle. She has established herself as a leader in her organizations both literally and by the virtue of her breadth of expertise. Finally, she is a virtual event hipster, having supported those since before COVID-19 made them cool.

Personally, she divides her time between CA, NV, and OR. She has four dogs to love, has been an avid traveler since long before she found this amazing career, and has a LEGO obsession that is inappropriate as a childless middle-aged woman.

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Board Member at Large

Senior Director, Events, AppFolio

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Board Member at Large

Associate Director of Corporate Sales, Visit Houston

Guided by Maya Angelou’s wisdom, "People will forget what you said, forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Mercedes Williams brings over 15 years of expertise in hospitality and sales. A graduate of Georgia State University with a business degree in marketing and management, she also holds an MBA from Texas A&M University.

Mercedes began her hospitality career in 2008 with Hyatt Hotels & Resorts and joined Visit Houston sales team in 2018. She has since excelled in her roles, advancing to Associate Director of Corporate Sales in 2022. She is committed to her community and actively participates in the Houston Junior League, Jack and Jill of America, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.

In her free time, Mercedes enjoys traveling, shopping, playing tennis, and exploring Houston’s food scene with her husband, Ron, and their daughters, Kamryn and Kali.

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Board Member at Large

Assistant Director of Sales, Excel London

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Board Member at Large

Executive Vice President, Client Services Delivery and Operations, Opus Agency

Across a portfolio of world-shaping brands, including Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, and many more— Paula Grayson and her Opus Agency teams are accelerating the power of shared experiences. As a member of the Opus Agency executive team, and Executive Vice President, Client Delivery & Operations, Paula leads our Event Management, Event Technology & Registration, and Client Services Delivery Operations teams. Together with her teams, she strives for operational excellence in pursuit of innovative solutions so that Opus Agency’s processes and way of working are collaborative, easy, successful, enjoyable, and future-focused for our clients and our employees.

Paula joined Opus Agency in 2000 as a project manager and discovered a passion for events that has fueled growth for her, her teams, Opus Agency, and our clients.

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Board Member at Large

Senior Vice President, Bellwether

A father of five, Richard is most comfortable in an environment of chaos and conflicting priorities, making him a natural fit for the live events industry! With nearly 20 years in executive leadership, he has an impressive legacy of building industry-leading teams and companies. Richard’s success is based upon a servant leadership model focused primarily on two critical areas: elevating employee morale and client satisfaction, which transforms both employees and clients into enthusiastic brand advocates. A native of San Diego, he relocated near Salt Lake City in 2020 and traded in his surfboard and sunscreen for hiking, mountain biking, and shoveling snow. In 2022 Richard was recruited to join Bellwether, a company he is exceptionally blessed to be part of. Thanks to a culture of operational excellence and continual innovation while also injecting fun along the way, Bellwether has consistently led the events industry in production quality, creativity, and client success for over a decade.

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Board Member at Large

VP, Events, Rainfocus

With over a decade of experience in the events industry, Rodney has developed a deep expertise in optimizing both in-person and digital event strategies. Early in his career, he focused on enhancing the onsite technology stack for large-scale enterprise events, helping to streamline experiences for tens of thousands of attendees. As the industry shifted, he played a pivotal role in transitioning major events to digital and hybrid formats, including leading the transformation of a flagship conference into a fully digital experience with significant growth in attendance. Now serving as the VP of Events at RainFocus, Rodney oversees the company’s event portfolio, leveraging event data and the RainFocus platform to maximize event impact and measure ROI across diverse event formats. His work continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible in the evolving landscape of event management.

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Board Member at Large

Director, Global Experiences & Events, Procore

Sarina is a seasoned event planning professional with over 12 years of experience delivering innovative, high-impact events that drive business results. She specializes in global user conferences, field marketing initiatives, and crafting exceptional in-person and virtual experiences.

Currently, Sarina serves as Director, Global Experiences & Events at Procore, leading a high-performing team and driving strategic initiatives that optimize budgets, enhance customer experiences, and elevate brand presence.

Sarina’s expertise spans event strategy, brand development, contract negotiation, and customer experience. Known for her ability to balance creativity with results-driven execution, she is passionate about creating memorable user conferences that engage attendees and advance organizational goals.

In her free time, Sarina enjoys traveling, cooking and flower arranging.

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Board Member at Large

VP, Events & Industry Partnerships, Forrester

Tavar James is a marketing & events champion with a proven record across industries. He began his career in the hospitality industry, working for the world’s largest hotel chain, Marriott International. He developed a niche for excellent service and client obsession through to his final role in hospitality with Ritz-Carlton, where he led a team to deliver high-profile, luxury experiences.

Tavar then moved into leadership roles at Equitable Financial and Riskified, where he managed global events of all types from board meetings to incentive trips to annual forums for up to 3,000 attendees. His experience also includes executive retreats, SKOs, and marketing events. During his time at Equitable, he also saw the firm through its IPO which included a complete re-brand and calendar of events including IPO launch events and a roadshow.

in April of 2024, Tavar joined BetterUp as Head of Events & Experiences where he had oversight of events that supported the company’s mission to enhance human potential including their annual event, Uplift, bringing together almost 2,000 CxO’s, senior people management professionals, and industry luminaries such as Adam Grant, Brene Brown and top celebrity talents like Issa Rae, Tracee Ellis Ross, Seth Godin, and more.

Tavar’s ability to build high-performing teams and deliver results makes him a trusted partner to executives. His experience and career journey have earned him trust within the industry as an experienced thought leader, always ready and willing to share his expertise. His passion for the industry is unmatched and he hopes to forge a clearer, more equitable path for the next generation of event professionals.

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Board Member at Large

Director of Sales & Strategy, Streamlinevents Inc.

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