On March 26, the Corporate Event Marketing Association announced that Brian Mason was appointed vice president, strategy and operations, for the 500-plus member organization.
A longtime CEMA member and former advisory board member, Mason “will lead the CEMA team and collaboratively work with the advisory board to execute CEMA’s vision and lead its growth initiatives, including brand marketing, new program development, events, membership growth and retention, and ongoing community engagement,” said Sherrif Karamat, CAE, president and CEO of CEMA and of the Professional Convention Management Association. CEMA was acquired by PCMA in late 2020.
Mason comes to CEMA from CRM and cloud-services provider Salesforce, where he played a central role in planning in-person events as well as directing the streaming strategies for the annual Dreamforce conference. The show draws more than 200,000 online attendees from around the world in addition to 43,000 in-person attendees to San Francisco.
From 2012 to 2020, Mason handled budget and vendor management for several of Salesforce’s World Tour events in Latin America, Europe, and Asia, while also leading the planning, development, and production of Dreamforce product showcases.
Then, as Salesforce’s director of strategic events from 2020 to 2022, Mason led the planning, execution, and fiscal oversight for the World Tour events held in Washington, D.C.; Toronto, Canada; and Munich, Germany, each of which attracts nearly 10,000 attendees and generates $15 million in pipeline leads. The total budget for those events is about $9 million, with a staff of nearly 100 employees and subcontractors.
For the past two years, Mason was part of the firm’s executive leadership team as senior director of strategic events, expanding the online attendance of the World Tour events to more than 125,000 while leading the Dreamforce broadcast team to a net promoter score of 70 percent.
“Strategic event leaders now play a central role in driving key performance indicators for companies in every industry,” said Mason. “I am excited to join the CEMA team that cultivates strategic-event marketing careers through education, networking, and leadership. I look forward to supporting our event-marketing membership, advisory board, and industry partners in CEMA’s next chapter.”
