The Women Who Build
EVG was built on a simple belief:
The future of this industry won’t come from what gets
acquired. It will come from what gets built.
Someone who built it from zero. Someone who took the risk when there was no certainty. That’s where EVG spends its time.
Our membership consists of veterans who have already done it. At the highest level. This month, I want to introduce you to a few of them. Not as titles. Not as headlines. But as builders.
Meet Our Members
Monique has shaped how millions of people experience ideas. At TED, she curates the moments that make those ideas land, live, in rooms, globally, with audiences who carry them into the world. Before that, she helped turn Money20/20 into the defining fintech gathering in the U.S. That’s not just event execution. That’s category influence. What it means for EVG is simple:
Builders at the earliest stage get access to someone who understands how to design moments that scale globally
Most early founders obsess over programming and logistics, but underestimate the feeling of an event. How do people move through a room? What happens when energy peaks and drops? What’s happening in the breaks and white spaces between sessions? That’s what people actually remember and return for. Content may be the reason they come. Experience is the reason they come back. And that sense of belonging, of identity, of “I’m part of something” — that has to be designed in from the start, not figured out later.
Cassandra didn’t just launch an event. She built a market. As Co-Founder of MJBizCon, she created the central gathering for an industry before it was fully formed, and scaled it into one of the fastest-growing trade shows in the U.S. She didn’t follow demand. She helped create it.
Inside EVG, that perspective matters: how to build ahead of the market, not behind it.
What early stage founders consistently underestimate is that timing is not just a market condition. It is a strategic decision. The founders who win are not the ones who waited for the right moment. They are the ones who decided the moment was now and built accordingly.
Heather has spent her career at the intersection of media, community, and events. From leadership roles at Informa to building and scaling large portfolios, she understands what it takes to turn content into a business engine.
In EVG, that translates into helping founders think beyond the event: toward platforms, audiences, and recurring value.
One early decision that changed the trajectory of her career: implementing matchmaking and appointment setting as a core sponsor and attendee value proposition in 2009 at The Manufacturing Leadership Summit. A revenue game changer and a lesson in the value of data, including first party purchase intent before anyone called it that. What early-stage event founders consistently underestimate: the amount of skill and effort across all functional lines that an event requires. The amount of cash it takes to launch a successful event and then scale. The number of people you need.
Nancy co-founded Connections Housing 39 years ago, building it into one of the most trusted housing and room block management companies in the events industry. Her entire career has been spent solving one of the most overlooked cost centers in event planning: lodging. From negotiating hotel contracts to maximizing room block pickup, she knows exactly where event founders lose money before a single attendee arrives. She understands what many early founders underestimate: great events are systems that need to hold at scale.
Inside EVG, that becomes a key unlock: helping founders move from scrappy execution to durable businesses.
What most early founders get wrong is treating operations as something to figure out later. The events that scale are not the ones with the best programming. They are the ones with the strongest foundation underneath it. Systems are not the unsexy part of building an event business. They are the entire point.
Nancy launched and built an events business with an invitation-only format, curated and personalized for executive-level attendees where trust and partnerships are formed. Through her work in specialized convening, she built events that are not just gatherings, but niche communities for collaboration and learning, where business is done.
That lens is powerful for EVG founders:
 how to build events that become essential, not optional.
The one early decision that was a trajectory for me was attending events where I realized there was an opportunity to differentiate by treating people in a way that they have never been treated before. What early-stage founders underestimate: the importance of building a foundation with the community you want to serve.
While the industry continues to consolidate what already exists, the next generation of event businesses is being built now.
That’s where EVG operates.

Not at the end of the journey, but at the beginning, where outcomes are still shaped. And when you bring together people who have already built at scale with those building what’s next, you shape the future of the industry.
The people in this edition are proof of the kind of circle you get access to when you are part of it.
THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSOR
ABOUT US
EVG is a not-for-profit community committed to accelerating event entrepreneurs by connecting them with strategic funding, expert mentorship, and an enthusiastjc club of members who are passionate about exploring and investing in earty-stage events on an individual basis. Join our collaborative community of world-class founders, serial-entrepreneurs, top-flight event operators shaping the next generation of event entrepreneurs.