Elizabeth Cookson, Mba, Cmp Email & Phone Number

Washington, DC, US

• Directs a 6-member team, overseeing development, marketing, and implementation for a portfolio of high-value programs.
• Defines vision, agenda, and strategy for value-driven conferences, events, and experiences. This includes setting annual priorities, leading the Planning Committee, and identifying logistical and programmatic.
• Develops multimillion-dollar event budgets and manages profit and loss, requests for proposal, procurement, and third-party vendor contracts. Doubled event revenue over the course of 6 years.
• Crafts leading-edge industry content, engaging chief executive officers (CEOs) at large-cap companies and growing event participation.
• Draws on industry expertise to evaluate sponsorship opportunities, leading to a 50% boost in department sponsorship revenue.
• Collaborates with government affairs, communications, member services, policy, and regulatory teams. Takes active role in weekly meetings with leadership to discuss policy, culture, workforce trends, and strategic.

Washington D.C. Metro Area

• Developed and guided a team of 6, providing leadership/direction that drove the delivery of top-rated events.
• Turned around annual conference, improving format, content, audience engagement, and return on investment for sponsors. Transformed event from annual loss of $20K to annual profit of $250K.
• Designed a strategic framework for the department, fueling coordination and optimizing the member experience.
• Implemented pricing analysis, new revenue streams, cost containment strategies, and improvements to sponsorship program that increased department net profit by 97%.
• Oversaw vendor agreements, including with marketing, hotel, audio-visual, and program consultants.

Washington D.C. Metro Area

• Managed team with primary responsibility for planning, budgeting, marketing and executing IDFA's conferences, meetings, workshops and webinars.
• Led efforts to ensure IDFA's educational programs were aligned strategically with current and emerging issues in the dairy industry; implemented by collaborating cross-functionally throughout IDFA departments and.
• Successfully instituted changes to IDFA's flagship annual conference, the Dairy Forum, in the areas of programming, sponsorship, event production and logistics that improved the experience for attendees and resulted in.
• Launched ProFood Tech, a new food and beverage processing tradeshow and educational program with 2 industry partners; event debuted in 2017 and tradeshow garnered 6,500 attendees.
• Improved overall planning, programming, marketing and implementation, leading to renegotiation of IDFA's management contract of partner, The Sweetener Users Association. This resulted in a 25% net revenue increase.
• Exceeded International Sweetener Colloquium revenue and attendance targets each year, 2014-2017.

Washington D.C. Metro Area

• Delivered greater value to GMA's members and consistency across educational initiatives by aligning conferences, committee and council meetings with GMA's strategic policy and public affairs priorities.
• Devised and coordinated multi-year business planning processes in support of developing, executing and evaluating GMA events. This included identifying opportunities to improve future meetings/conferences via enhanced.
• Led the development and implementation of a GMA Meetings Toolkit to streamline conference planning and provide better service to internal and external stakeholders.

Washington D.C. Metro Area

• Successfully led planning, budgeting, organizational coordination and onsite execution of over fifty meetings and conferences for GMA and its partner organizations. These included events focused on food safety, supply.
• Improved overall GMA Executive Conference event quality by engaging senior staff, communications and key vendors to improve production via consistently branded conference materials, improved staging and presentation.
• Developed and directed entire production schedule for GMA's Executive Conference, the association's flagship event for Fortune 500 consumer packaged goods CEOs and senior leadership. Ensured planning team's adherence.

Washington D.C. Metro Area

• Flawlessly executed logistics related to regional conferences including site selection, contract negotiation, budget determination and formulation, speaker coordination, marketing deliverables, onsite execution and.
• Improved operational efficiency by leading the implementation of online registration across all GMA conferences after exhaustive process of researching, training, and coordination with internal stakeholders.
• Key contributor to planning team comprised mainly of global retailer and manufacturer association senior leadership; steered planning process, supervised production of briefing booklet and meeting materials, and.

Arlington, VA

• Improved operational efficiency by leading the implementation of online registration across all GMA conferences after exhaustive process of researching, training, and coordination with internal stakeholders.
• Developed marketing strategies to ensure achievement of registration and revenue goals for regional conferences. Responsible for the production of marketing collateral, digital marketing campaign strategy and oversight.
• Managed contract negotiation, vendor selection, budget development and logistics for ACMA board meetings, regional seminars, special events and the association's annual convention; coordinated hotels, audio visual.

Boston, MA

• Successfully executed more than 200 medical education meetings representing $5 million in annual revenue. Managed symposia team, which was responsible for all symposia-related marketing projects, registration, onsite.
• Created and implemented effective marketing and registration strategy, which contributed to a 10% growth in attendance for all six annual Pri-Med Conference & Exhibitions (4,000-8,000 attendees).
• Maintained and strengthened relationships with medical education companies and national pharmaceutical supporters; ensured revenue goals were met by working closely with sales team.

Cambridge, MA

• Created selling strategies, wrote proposals and negotiated contracts in order to promote four-diamond, luxury hotel for large corporate events; exceeded aggressive sales target by 25% in six of eight quarters during.
• Increased customer base by making presentations to potential clients, showcasing the hotel at national tradeshows, and attending Interstate and Preferred Hotels & Resorts clients events.

Cambridge, MA

• Solicited, negotiated and booked small to mid-size corporate events. Coordinated details and managed all aspects of meetings, ensuring hotel staff guaranteed smooth operations and customer satisfaction for the hotel's.
• Awarded "Best Executive Meeting Manager, Interstate Hotel Region 1", for exceeding annual sales goals by 25%. Received "Golden Eagle Award " for booking over 50% of 1st quarter goal, 2001.

Master Of Business Administration (M.B.A.)

Completed degree as guest student at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and The George Washington.

Bachelor Of Arts (B.A.), Economics

Minor in German. Studied German at intensive summer language program at Albert Ludwigs University in Freiburg, Germany, Summer 1996.