Cvent Superstar

See our Nominees & Cast Your Vote!

Read about our Cvent super users below and vote for your favorite. The top nominees will be honored during the Cvent Excellence Awards ceremony at Cvent CONNECT. Help us recognize the incredible advocates who are spreading the power of the Cvent platform by voting today!

Once you've read through the nominees and decided your winner, click below to cast your vote!

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Vote for Your Favorite Advocate of the Year

Name: Kim Tabor

Organization: GIE Media

Summary: As Conference Manager – Exhibitors, Sponsorships, and Technology Operations at GIE Media, Kim helped select Cvent as the organization’s long-term event platform and now leads how it is implemented and evolved across the program. Over the last 12 years in the industry, Kim’s skills have grown from using basic registration tools to managing and supporting more than 100 events in Cvent – and owning the organization’s event systems strategy. Kim designs and maintains Cvent framework, always focused on reducing friction for the team and improving stakeholder experiences. She has led key enhancements including standardized templates that cut registration and communication build timelines from about a week to one working day. Optimizations like these have driven measurable outcomes that directly and positively impact the business. Kim stays deeply engaged in the Cvent ecosystem through active participation in Cvent Community discussions, beta and early adopter programs, product feedback opportunities, and continuous learning via Cvent Academy and at Cvent Connect. She has earned Cvent Event Management, Advanced Event Management, and AttendeeHub certifications, using this expertise to mentor colleagues and share best practices with peers across the industry. Driven by a mindset of curiosity and continuous improvement, Kim consistently looks for better ways to use Cvent so technology becomes a strategic enabler of how GIE Media’s events are delivered.

Name: Kelley Johnson

Organization: Legal Associations Management

Summary: As Technical Program Manager at Legal Associations Management (LAM), Kelley oversees the event technology ecosystem supporting more than 30 legal associations and a growing portfolio of national conferences, with Cvent at the center of how events are planned, executed, and scaled. Kelley’s role spans event operations, marketing technology, CRM integrations, and reporting, and they serve as the primary Cvent lead and problem-solver for the organization. She designs reusable Cvent-based workflows, standardized registration and exhibitor frameworks, and platform governance across multiple brands, reducing build time, errors, and manual work while improving data quality. Kelley actively leads training, documentation, and mentoring so teams understand how early planning, ownership, and consistent use of tools drive better outcomes. Kelley has moved from building events to shaping how LAM approaches event planning as a whole. She regularly translates business goals into practical Cvent builds that can be reused and improved year over year to ensure Cvent is treated as a core process. Kelley also engages deeply with Cvent Community and Cvent Academy, applying her learnings directly to live events. Her Cvent advocacy supports more than eight national conferences each year with thousands of attendees and hundreds of exhibitors, saving dozens of hours per event cycle, reducing last-minute issues, and enabling LAM to grow from three core events to more than eight annually without adding headcount.

Name: James Rose

Organization: University of Michigan

Summary: At the University of Michigan, James has become the go-to Cvent champion not only within the Office of Development but also for campus partners to engage alumni and donors. He regularly hosts office hours and working sessions, walking different teams through registration builds, email workflows, and reporting with practical how-to guides to replicate setup independently. Recognizing that many teams were building from scratch, James led the standardization of templates for common event types, streamlining build time and ensuring consistent, on-brand experiences. He was also a key advocate for bringing Cvent Essentials to campus, helping the School of Medicine adopt it as a scalable solution for managing complex education and outreach events. Cross-functionally, James partners with marketing, advancement services, and data teams to align Cvent usage with CRM and communications strategies, demonstrating how event data can enrich constituent records and support targeted follow-up. He also helps lead the Higher Ed Community User Group, contributes heavily to webinars, and serves as a trusted reference for institutions evaluating or optimizing Cvent. He presented at Cvent CONNECT in 2025 on accessibility and inclusive event design. James consistently highlights Cvent’s capabilities with peers and shares concrete examples from the university’s program. Through these efforts, he has helped elevate Cvent to an institutional platform that multiple teams rely on – driving a stronger partnership across the university and the wider higher-ed community.

Name: Angela Moreno

Organization: Fox World Travel

Summary: As a Program Manager at Fox World Travel, Angela serves as a primary resource for Cvent strategy, execution, and optimization across the Meetings & Incentives team. She leads the development of event websites, registration builds, reporting structures, and process improvements, while training colleagues, troubleshooting issues, and standardizing best practices so the team can fully leverage the platform. Using Cvent has strengthened Angela’s technical skills, data analysis capabilities, and ability to design scalable processes that improve efficiency across multiple programs. She has created standardized website templates, registration flows, and reporting structures that reduce build time, minimize errors, and provide more intuitive experiences for both planners and attendees. Angela also uses Cvent’s reporting to deliver real-time insights to clients, improving data consistency, turnaround times, and confidence in program performance. Her work has driven measurable impact through faster website and registration builds, increased adoption of Cvent best practices, more accurate and accessible reporting, and enhanced attendee experiences. Across multiple high-profile programs, Angela has supported everything from initial build strategy to onsite execution and post-event reporting, resulting in smoother operations and consistently positive client feedback. She advocates for Cvent by making it approachable, efficient, and impactful for everyone who uses it, taking pride in both mastering the platform herself and empowering others to do the same.

Name: Jeremy Houser

Organization: Duke University

Summary: At Duke University, Jeremy Houser exemplifies the spirit of a Cvent Advocate of the Year by leading with both data and empathy, using Cvent’s reporting to guide high-stakes decisions while keeping the alumni experience at the center. He serves as Duke’s internal champion for the platform, helping make Cvent the trusted system of record for events across Alumni Engagement and Development and supporting planners as they navigate new processes and tools. Jeremy is also a connector and collaborator, opening doors for other universities and for Cvent by co-hosting summits, actively participating in Cvent CONNECT, and engaging with the Excellence Awards program. He consistently offers thoughtful, practical feedback that helps refine how Cvent supports higher-education use cases. Through this combination of strategic insight, hands-on partnership, and peer advocacy, Jeremy has helped make Duke’s event program more resilient, more data-driven, and more closely aligned with the full capabilities of the Cvent platform. In doing so, he not only elevates Cvent within his own institution but also helps expand what is possible for the broader higher-education community.

Name: Pamela Gregory

Organization: Zimmer Biomet

Summary: At Zimmer Biomet Institute, Pamela has transformed medical education delivery by championing Cvent as the organization’s strategic event technology backbone. During the pandemic, she leveraged her end-to-end event planning expertise to drive a digital transformation built around Cvent as the single source of truth for event data. Pamela led the introduction of new Cvent products and complex platform integrations, and activated and operationalized a broad suite of Cvent modules — embedding them into daily workflows with clear governance and adoption plans. Pamela is known for bridging strategy, technology, and people: she translates business needs into scalable Cvent solutions, standardizes best practices, and equips teams through training and knowledge sharing so tools are fully utilized rather than simply turned on. Her work has improved data accuracy, reduced manual processes, and elevated the end-to-end learner experience across Zimmer Biomet’s global education portfolio. As one stakeholder noted, her leadership in integrating Cvent has enabled actionable, data-driven insights and helped Zimmer Biomet’s Medical Education program stand out as best in class.

Name: Nicole Sargent

Organization: Workhuman

Summary: Nicole serves as Marketing Technologist and Cvent Administrator at Workhuman, acting as the organization’s go-to Cvent expert and a driving force behind platform adoption since 2022. She oversees more than 15 events annually using a robust Cvent stack. Nicole trains and supports more than 20 internal Cvent users through onboarding and annual refreshers, empowering teams to confidently manage their own programs while continuously improving UX through thoughtful tweaks and data-informed recommendations. She has attended Cvent CONNECT every year since 2023, returning with new tools for enhanced event, marketing, and sales enablement – while also earning the Event-Led Growth certification and encouraging her team to follow suit. Nicole actively contributes to the broader Cvent community by leading a Community Conversation on MarTech, integrations, and data, participating in beta programs, and joining Customer Success Groups to discuss emerging event trends. Her advocacy and expertise have helped Workhuman refine their event and marketing strategy, with colleagues praising her for being a step ahead, turning registration into a “true science,” and never settling for “the same old.” Most recently, her mastery of the platform earned her a spot in the Cvent Power User Build Off at Cvent CONNECT, underscoring her reputation as both a behind-the-scenes problem solver and a visible leader in event technology.

Name: Leah Johnson

Organization: Augeo Experience

Summary: At Augeo Experience, Leah serves as Event Technology Manager, balancing hands-on Cvent execution with platform governance across dozens of client programs. With more than 10 years of daily Cvent experience, she manages countless event builds along with templates, standards, and best practices that ensure consistent quality. Leah’s improvements have cut standard build time by up to 75%. Her work has supported rising scale and adoption, with early 2026 registrant counts already exceeding 2025 by more than 1,200 registrations. Leah is a committed Cvent advocate internally, training and upskilling builders and account teams, surfacing new features early, and creating demo events and apps that showcase what’s possible—often using creative workarounds to deliver experiences beyond default configurations. Externally, she is deeply involved in the Cvent ecosystem, engaging in Community forums, participating in UX research and beta programs, leveraging Partner Portal resources, and earning four certifications. She has also integrated AI tools into her workflows to accelerate content drafting and template creation, positioning Augeo for fast, responsible adoption of upcoming CventIQ capabilities through clean data structures and shared governance. Recently, Leah continues laying the foundation for scalable rollouts that give clients long-term ownership and confidence in the platform.

Name: Brent Kelley

Organization: Fox World Travel

Summary: In his first year as Event Resource Specialist at Fox World Travel, Brent quickly evolved from a new Cvent user into a trusted program enabler and de facto platform expert. He earned Cvent Event Management, Advanced Event Management, and Attendee Hub certifications, and immediately applied that expertise across a broad mix of meetings, incentives, and conferences. Brent focused not just on efficient execution, but on elevating how the entire team implemented Cvent by accelerating speed to launch, ensuring consistent brand execution, and delivering clean, reliable data. He built scalable templates, standardized registration workflows, and structured data capture that aligned day-to-day event execution with enterprise analytics and downstream reporting. In his first year, 72 events were successfully launched and managed in Cvent under his support, representing 50% of total program. Certified best-practice configurations reduced setup time and improved consistency across the portfolio, while stronger data quality enabled credible cross-program analysis and leadership reporting. Brent’s rapid certification, adoption, and influence demonstrate the essence of a Cvent Rookie of the Year – delivering immediate, measurable impact while laying a strong foundation for long-term program growth.

Name: Alicia Schuster

Organization: SMS Meeting Services

Summary: As the lead Cvent champion at SMS Meeting Services, Alicia has driven the firm’s adoption of Cvent's full platform capabilities. She helped standardize on Cvent by configuring reusable templates and cross-module workflows, partnering with Cvent experts to manage training and onboarding. Under her guidance, the rapidly growing agency now runs large-scale conferences and trade shows for thousands of attendees on a single, unified platform. Alicia helped create a single source of truth for attendee and sponsor data, drastically reducing manual reconciliation. This helped shorten event setup timelines and improve visibility into exhibitor performance and lead generation. Her work has also strengthened revenue opportunities through improved exhibitor workflows and upsell paths, while delivering a more seamless experience for attendees and partners. Importantly, Alicia has made onboarding far more efficient by pairing structured Cvent training paths with internal best practices, enabling new team members to own events faster and ensuring every client receives the same high-quality, professional service. Together, these efforts have turned Cvent into the operational backbone of SMS Meeting Services and positioned Alicia as a pivotal enabler of the company’s growth.

Name: Katie Risher

Organization: University of Florida Conference Department

Summary: The University of Florida Conference Department began adopting the Cvent ecosystem in 2024 to unify event sourcing, online and onsite registration, community engagement, and real-time reporting. To launch this transformation, Katie Risher organized an on-campus “Cvent Day” workshop that introduced 60 new campus stakeholders to the full end-to-end Cvent workflow, creating a broad base of internal advocates. As a Cvent champion for UF, she has spoken at three Cvent events in the past year, including the Q1 Virtual Education Community Conversation on Cvent Supplier Network (Higher Education), the March 24, 2026 Q1 Education Networking Meetup, and the “Overcoming Event Tech Adoption Roadblocks: Real Tactics from Higher Ed & Association Leaders” webinar. Across these sessions, Katie has shared how UF uses Cvent Supplier Network to source venues and hotels, demonstrated sourcing workflows, and participated in live Q&A to discuss real-world adoption strategies. As a result of this immersive activation and broader ecosystem rollout, UF consolidated previously fragmented event processes into a single platform, generating clear efficiencies in planning and execution. In 2025, the Conference Department won the Cvent Excellence Award for Rookie of the Year, validating both the financial impact and time savings of the new workflows. Katie also leverages Cvent Attendee Hub and OnArrival onsite check-in to elevate attendee experience, streamline onsite operations, and drive higher per-participant revenue for UF events.

Name: Jillian Koresko

Organization: Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Summary: At the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Jillian has elevated the overall event strategy by fully embracing Cvent’s capabilities and aligning them with the school’s goals across recruitment, academic, alumni, and executive education programs. She proactively explores new features and best practices, then translates them into standardized registration, communication, and data-collection workflows that improve the attendee experience and streamline internal operations. Jillian drives high adoption of Cvent by ensuring teams are trained and confident while leveraging reports and dashboards to demonstrate impact and guide continuous improvement. As a partner to Cvent, she regularly participates in discovery and feedback sessions, pilots new functionality, and serves as a reference for other higher education institutions considering or expanding their Cvent footprint. Within Wharton, she is the go-to Cvent champion, developing clear processes, documentation, and training that help new users ramp quickly and encouraging teams to experiment with Cvent for new program types and audiences. Her leadership has contributed to reduced manual work, more cohesive attendee journeys, and stronger reporting on event performance and ROI. Jillian also champions joint success stories and peer networking, helping other clients learn from Wharton’s journey and further strengthening the broader Cvent community. Her strategic vision, deep collaboration with Cvent, and tireless internal advocacy make her a standout example of what a Cvent Advocate of the Year should be.

Name: Amir Khan

Organization: Avalara

Summary: AAs Corporate Events Manager at Avalara, Amir serves as a Cvent champion, driving adoption, education, and trust in the platform across the company’s global events program. Amir is the go-to resource for event technology decisions and consistently advocates for Cvent-first solutions that improve consistency, efficiency, and scale. By deepening his own expertise in managing complex, multi-region programs, Amir educates cross-functional teams on how to fully leverage existing Cvent capabilities. For Avalara’s flagship sales-hosted event series of 20 events, Amir replaced manual attendance tracking with Cvent OnArrival, standardizing attendance, simplifying check-in for sales reps, eliminating manual work, and improving data accuracy. Amir also successfully deployed Cvent’s Event Build Services, strengthening the partnership. Across all advocacy efforts, Amir focuses on maximizing the value of tools already available rather than adding cost or complexity, resulting in higher Cvent adoption, improved internal satisfaction, and more consistent, measurable event outcomes.

Name: Sarah Murphy

Organization: NCCI Holdings, Inc.

Summary: At NCCI Holdings, Sarah is not just a Cvent power user but a platform builder who has helped turn Cvent into the operating system for a complex, multi-format event portfolio. She has completed all standard Cvent certifications and training programs, earned additional credentials in Passkey, Webinars, and Exhibitor Management at Cvent CONNECT, and participated in more than five beta programs last year alone – providing product feedback that directly influenced product enhancements. Under Sarah’s guidance, NCCI now runs full-platform experiences, leveraging CventIQ and key integrations through a single, scalable platform. By helping to consolidate registration, attendance, sourcing, and engagement data into Cvent, NCCI now has unified reporting across events, eliminating manual reconciliation and elevating the strategic visibility of the events function. Sarah exemplifies the spirit of Cvent Advocate of the Year because she doesn’t just use the platform—she makes it better and more valuable for NCCI and the broader customer community.

Name: Taylor Penezic

Organization: Calix

Summary: At Calix, Taylor Penezic helped lead the transformation of ConneXions from a large-scale annual event into a measurable growth engine by using Cvent as a unified event operating system that connected registration, engagement, executive meetings, exhibitor activity, onsite operations, and post-event reporting into a single, data-driven motion. Under this model, registrations grew significantly and pipeline increased drastically. Taylor’s team used Cvent to power onsite check-in kiosks, RFID-based attendance and traffic analytics, Attendee Hub engagement, Zoom-connected virtual access, Salesforce-linked registration, and AEM-connected digital experiences, while integrating Jifflenow for executive and sales meetings and Cvent LeadCapture with RFID analytics to tie booth behavior to follow-up. This ecosystem enabled leaders to see not just who registered, but who engaged, which sessions they attended, what meetings they booked, and how showcase interactions contributed to pipeline and next steps. As a result, Calix now operates with a more mature, data-rich event model in which Cvent serves as the centralized activation and insight layer, strengthening attendee experience, improving operational control, increasing executive visibility, and positioning events as a defensible strategic growth lever rather than a cost center.

Name: Andrea Ginorio

Organization: MKTG

Summary: At MKTG, Andrea serves as the designated Cvent champion, leading a transformation from fragmented legacy tools to a unified, scalable event management ecosystem. She drove completion of seven Cvent Academy certifications and embedded five certified power users across client teams, enabling deep in-house expertise and faster problem-solving. Andrea centralized registration and reporting, and standardized templates and workflows – significantly reducing manual work and accelerating event setup without adding headcount. Under her leadership, MKTG has expanded use of Cvent’s Registration, Onsite Solutions, and other tools, reflecting broad adoption of Cvent across hospitality, incentives, and experiential programs. Andrea regularly hosts solution-specialist calls, live demos, and roadmap presentations for internal stakeholders and end clients, helping position Cvent as the go-to event platform. Her advocacy, including contributions to Cvent Community discussions and feedback on beta programs, has delivered impressive time savings, improved data accuracy, and a more repeatable, metrics-driven event model that supports MKTG’s growth strategy. As a result, MKTG became a Cvent Gold Partner in 2025 and is now pursuing additional services designations, underscoring the strategic value of Andrea’s leadership.

Name: Bethany Day

Organization: ConferenceDirect

Summary: As a leader at ConferenceDirect, Bethany actively promotes Cvent by driving adoption across teams, sharing best practices to maximize its value, and highlighting success metrics and efficiencies to reinforce ROI. She and her colleagues are deeply engaged in Cvent programs, regularly submitting enhancement requests, serving as early adopters for new features such as Sourcing AI, and participating in UX research initiatives. Under Bethany’s advocacy, the team leverages Cvent Academy extensively and collectively maintains 35 active certifications across multiple service lines, reflecting a strong commitment to platform expertise and continuous learning. They also use the Cvent sandbox environment to test build scenarios, refine processes, and train new hires, which accelerates onboarding, reduces errors, and improves overall efficiency. Cvent’s evolving AI capabilities have influenced the team’s approach to innovation in the event space while centralizing registration, communications, reporting, and on-site operations into a single platform that streamlines execution and reduces manual work. Bethany helps ensure the team stays current on new features by monitoring Cvent Product News and engaging in regular touchpoints with their Cvent representative, quickly incorporating relevant enhancements into client workflows. Collectively, these efforts have strengthened adoption, improved operational efficiency, and maximized the value of Cvent, positioning ConferenceDirect as a more strategic, tech-enabled event partner.

Name: Andrea Sorbello

Organization: The United States Tennis Association

Summary: As Meetings & Events Coordinator at the United States Tennis Association, Andrea has been instrumental in transforming USTA’s events championing Cvent as an enterprise-wide platform. She has led implementations for multiple operations, replacing more than 20 different forms with integrated Cvent solutions. Andrea has expanded Cvent usage from a single department to a campus-wide standard, coordinating more than 80 contracted hours of custom development and successfully managing events ranging from 40 to over 6,000 participants. She designed sophisticated multi-wave registration systems dozens of attendee types and complex access rules for high-profile programs, elevating both logistics and stakeholder management. Her strategies have garnered impressive results, with extremely high attendance and app adoption rates. She also organized a two-day “Cvent Day” at the organization’s headquarters this year to accelerate platform buy-in and adoption, and continues to work to secure the tools needed to sustain USTA’s growth. Through these efforts, Andrea has positioned USTA as a Cvent success story and herself as a trusted advisor to leadership and a key partner to Cvent in showcasing how sports organizations can leverage event technology for operational excellence and innovative attendee engagement.


Name: Gabrielle Viso

Organization: ADL

Summary: At ADL, Gabrielle uses Cvent as a core pillar of her work, strengthening her technical skills, strategic thinking, and ability to connect events directly to fundraising, engagement, and mission impact. She is a daily advocate for the platform, helping colleagues use audience segmentation, automated communications, integrated reporting, and Salesforce-connected workflows to reduce manual work and create more scalable, consistent events. Through Cvent Academy and multiple certifications, Gabrielle has become a key internal resource, guiding teams toward smarter, data-driven practices and better attendee experiences. She actively participates in Cvent’s broader community, including a video testimonial and early feature testing, providing practical feedback that helps shape the platform for real-world nonprofit use. Gabrielle has championed AI-assisted support for website copy, stronger segmentation rules, and integrated communications workflows, all of which have reduced repetitive tasks and improved execution. Operationally, Gabrielle has used to Cvent to help ADL supported 34 events last year alone, engaging nearly 17,000 attendees and generating millions of dollars in revenue to support the mission. She is especially proud that ADL was a finalist in the Power of the Platform: Total Event Program category, using that recognition as motivation to deepen adoption and elevate their program even further. Gabrielle’s advocacy is grounded in genuine belief in both the platform and its community, and she consistently works to help others see what is possible when Cvent is used to its full potential.

Name: Justin Davidson

Organization: American Nuclear Society

Summary: Justin brings a unique perspective to the American Nuclear Society as a registration specialist. He owns registration and event logistics in Cvent for the event program and has quickly become a strong internal advocate for adopting new features that support their mission. Justin is highly engaged with the Cvent Community, particularly the Association & Non-Profit Community Meet Ups, where he regularly shares challenges, solutions, and ideas and was recognized in the October 2025 session for helping to lead the discussion on making events more engaging and retaining members. His contributions have led to an invitation to speak at an ANP Meet Up in 2026, reflecting his transparency, dedication, and ongoing engagement with other customers and the platform. Justin actively leverages Cvent reporting to understand trends and effectiveness of particular strategies. These efforts have contributed to higher registration conversions and participation, with ANS hosting six more events in Cvent in 2025 and driving over 6,600 registrations — a 75% increase year-over-year. Justin has helped identify and implement improvements such as onboarding Attendee Hub and the Event App, adopting exhibitor management to consolidate sponsor processes, and planning to launch the Meeting Request Form to centralize intake and reporting. Through this combination of hands-on execution, data-driven optimization, and strategic collaboration, Justin is helping ANS scale its event program while saving planner time and deepening its partnership with Cvent.

Name: Taylor Colman

Organization: LMC

Summary: At LMC, Taylor leads the planning and execution of high-impact events that connect dealers, suppliers, and internal stakeholders, relying on Cvent as a core pillar of their event strategy. Taylor has driven the adoption and expansion of Cvent across the program, more than doubling the number of events managed annually and establishing consistent, scalable processes that improve both efficiency and performance. A key focus of Taylor’s advocacy is positioning registration as a strategic foundation rather than a formality, ensuring that key attendee data is captured upfront to enable more precise planning and stronger engagement. By standardizing how Cvent is used across events, Taylor has helped internal teams move from ad hoc workflows to a more disciplined, repeatable operating model. Real-time data and reporting from Cvent now inform how LMC measures success, shifting the organization from reactive planning to proactive, insight-driven decision making. Taylor regularly guides internal teams and stakeholders on how to interpret and act on this data so that each event builds on the last. Through this combination of strategy, enablement, and hands-on execution, Taylor has shown how Cvent can power smarter strategy, stronger delivery, and consistently successful events across LMC’s portfolio.

Name: Elisabeth Sherrell

Organization: ICPA

Summary: Elisabeth Sherrell, Executive Director of ICPA, has been a dedicated Cvent user and advocate since 2017. Over a seven-year journey, she secured the needed executive trust and buy-in to deploy Cvent across all events. Elisabeth now relies on Cvent daily to grow ICPA’s event program, guiding ICPA through the acquisition of the International Trade Certification Authority, using Cvent to manage an expanded portfolio of events, certifications, and surveys. To protect quality and continuity, Elisabeth has invested in Cvent professional services and is consistently among the first to explore new products and integrations, including Session Board, GlueUp for membership management, and Goldcast. Through her combination of loyalty, early adoption, and deep partnership with Cvent teams, Elisabeth exemplifies how committed leadership can use technology to keep an organization resilient and future-focused.





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