Meetings Today Podcast

Our weekly Trendsetter Tuesday podcast series checks in with Rachel Andrews, senior director of global meetings and events for meetings and events industry technology giant Cvent. After signing on with Cvent in 2011, Andrews built its event program from the ground up. Fourteen years later, she leads a team of 30 managing some 1,200 events every year. She also has catapulted Cvent’s annual user conference, Cvent CONNECT, into a globally recognized industry event. Andrews is also the co-host of Cvent’s Great Events podcast and is an MPI International Board of Directors member, sought-after speaker and respected mentor and leader.

Debbie Garcia is the CEO of Virsitour, an online directory for meeting and event planners that allows them to experience virtual site tours of hotel and event venues from around the world. She is also a certified meeting planner and serves as the vice president of finance for MPI’s Tennessee chapter.  As part of our weekly Trendsetter Tuesday podcast series, Meetings Today digital content coordinator Logan Pratt sat down with Garcia to learn why she still believes in the value of virtual site tours and how she got to be where she is in the industry today. 

Independent planner Chase Brunson is the foremost advocate for transgendered people in the meetings and events industry, frequently speaking for top industry associations such as MPI and PCMA. Meetings Today's Tyler Davidson engaged Brunson to discover his journey and learn key tips for his planner colleagues to implement in their programs to ensure their events are welcoming to all attendees.

From the sprawling new Omni PGA Frisco Resort to major professional sporting facilities and a growing downtown, Frisco, Texas, is making moves in the meetings and events world. Christina Decker, director of sales and services for Visit Frisco, explains the phenomenal growth of this Metroplex town and how the many additions and upcoming venues will dramatically increase its meetings and events clout.

To celebrate our 2024 Meetings Trendsetters, Meetings Today launched "Trendsetter Tuesday," a podcast series of interviews with the 20 Trendsetters recognized in our July/August issue. Dr. Brandi Baldwin, CEO of Millennial Ventures, has made a massive effort to help companies and industry professionals thrive in their work environments. Dr. Baldwin was named a 2024 Meetings Trendsetter by Meetings Today for her efforts to develop cutting edge strategies that foster equitable and thriving company cultures. Meetings Today's Taylor Smith sat down with this Trendsetter to hear her story and learn more about what it means to make a difference.

To celebrate our 2024 Meetings Trendsetters, Meetings Today launched "Trendsetter Tuesday," a podcast series of interviews with the 20 Trendsetters recognized in our July/August issue. Dami Kim is a wellness warrior who's been practicing how to effectively care for her physical, emotional and mental well-being for 26 years. Now, as director of Body & Brain Wellness, she is helping some of the most stressed professionals in the world do the same. Kim was named a 2024 Meetings Trendsetter by Meetings Today for her desire to educate the industry through innovative and transformative practices fueled by her passion for helping others. Meetings Today's Taylor Smith sat down with this Trendsetter to see how she turned her own life around and found her passion for helping others do the same.

Jim Spellos, president of Meeting U., has always been in the top echelon of meetings industry technology educators and speakers. AI such as ChatGPT has further fueled his fascination of transformative tech. Spellos was named a 2024 Meetings Trendsetter by Meetings Today for his arguably unrivaled understanding of AI as it relates to the meetings industry. Meetings Today's Tyler Davidson sat down with him to get his take on AI and what may lie beyond.

In this Meetings Today podcast for "The Z," Taylor Smith has a vulnerable conversation with Christy Renee Stehle, an award-winning hospitality professional, leadership trainer and professional speaker, about how to increase your magnetic presence to cultivate connections that make people remember you.

On this episode of Fast Forward, host Logan Pratt interviews David T. Stevens, one of the foremost wellness and fitness experts in the meetings and events industry on what the future of wellness looks like in the industry and how planners should be implementing wellness into their event agendas and how they can stay ahead of wellness trends.

To celebrate our 2024 Meetings Trendsetters, Meetings Today is introducing "Trendsetter Tuesday," a podcast series of interviews with the 20 Trendsetters recognized in our July/August issue. In this episode, Meetings Today's Taylor Smith sat down for a conversation with Kristine Iverson, founder and president of CROW Practice, to learn about how she started her own live events wellness company, discovered the leadership techniques that work for her and what it means to her to be a 2024 Meetings Trendsetter.