The most powerful room in any building is the one designed with a clear purpose.
I did not follow a traditional event path.
My career began in investment management - tracking trends, analyzing portfolios, and making recommendations. It was precise, analytical work. I studied to become a financial analyst. I met clients, sat through strategy discussions, and scheduled deal-making dinners. At the time, I had no idea another path would emerge.
The pivot was not planned. I suppose it rarely ever is.
I moved from monitoring the performance of multi-million dollar investment portfolios to managing multi-million dollar event budgets, curating program content, and designing end-to-end experiences. Twenty years later, I understand those two disciplines were never that far apart. Both require reading a room, creative design, managing risk, and delivering a measurable outcome.
Most recently I sat as director of conference programming for a large professional association, leading a portfolio generating over $20M in annual revenue. I managed a team that creates several hundred conference sessions and working with hundreds of speakers and subject matter experts annually across twelve conferences.
Now, I take on select consulting and facilitation engagements through KAK & Co., my boutique consultancy, for organizations ready to rethink how they convene.
My approach centers on one question: what should participants be able to do, decide, or understand differently because this experience happened? Everything else, content architecture, journey design, speaker selection, facilitation, follows from that.
A few initiatives “baked” by KĀK were a podcast, a community for financially curious, and coming soon a retreat.
I contribute to the profession as a member of PCMA, immediate past president of the PCMA Southeast Chapter, and course facilitator at Rollins College Edyth Bush Institute for Nonprofit Leadership.
For fun, I built #NishSips, a personal collection of cocktail recipes for people who believe a well-made drink deserves the same intention as a well-designed experience.
Twenty years in, my conviction hasn't changed.
When an organization convenes well - the content is sharp, the experience is intentional, and the logistics are invisible — it builds something money can't manufacture: trust, community, and momentum.
That's what I design for. Every time.