Sacha Carey, CEM, Senior Director, Corporate Development of Water Environment Federation
Hometown: Pittsburgh, PA
University of Education: University of Massachusetts, Amherst – BA in Chinese Language and Literature
How long have you served on the CEIR Research Council?
This is my second year.
Why did you volunteer to work with CEIR on the Research Council?
I had just wrapped up three years on the IAEE MATSO Council, which was extremely valuable and rewarding, so I was definitely interested in getting involved with another Council.
What have you learned through your work with CEIR?
It’s interesting to hear what’s keeping other organizers up at night and seeing similarities and differences between non-profit, for profit and independent or association organizers in how we do things and what we want to know.
How has CEIR research helped your organization?
The Event Performance Analyzer tool requires a lot of data input but what you get out of it is really useful. I also used all of the Attendee ROI Playbook series and shared with Marketing.
How can CEIR research help our industry?
The pandemic is a catalyst for rapid change in the events industry. CEIR research is helping us all keep our finger on the pulse of our industry stakeholders (exhibitors, sponsors, attendees, other event organizers and suppliers). This gives us data to compare our theories and experiences and determine our path forward.
Is there specific CEIR research/report that has helped you?
The pulse surveys about event cancellations, move to virtual, how much revenue is being made in virtual, and when people plan to return to live and what’s happening with hiring have been very helpful to get a sense of where things are going.
What can peers and colleagues learn from CEIR research?
Spend the time to browse around at the different research that has been done by CEIR. There are all sorts of reports that you can use to guide your visioning and planning.
How do you plan to use CEIR research in the future?
There is a study going out soon on omnichannel marketing that I’m looking forward to seeing. My organization has seen some changes in what clients are spending their marketing dollars on and I’m interested to see how that will change once live events resume.
Is there an area of study that particularly resonates with you?
Everything that CEIR puts out is worth reading. They do a great job curating topics and getting input from stakeholders to make sure their topics are important and worthwhile.
