David Adler, Chairman and Founder of BizBash (www.bizbash.com), is a veteran media, marketing, and event industry entrepreneur. He believes that event organizers of all types need to be “high performance collaboration artists,” and he founded BizBash in 2000 to further that cause. Since then, the company has grown to be the largest B-to-B media company for the event industry with over 2.5 million user sessions annually.
The company’s magazines, newsletters, web sites, trade shows, and bespoke events are all designed to allow event planners and producers to share new approaches and best practices as well as great venues and suppliers to inspire smarter gatherings of all types.
Franchise stories like the “Top 500 People in Events,” “The Top 100 Events” in cities and countries, the “Top Meetings in North America,” “The Top 50 Event Designers in North America,” and the “Top Venues and Suppliers” in a market have given event professionals a marketplace of ideas and resources that make their jobs easier.
While the focus is on event, meeting, and experiential marketing professionals, the company also serves the “hidden” planners who may not have the job title but who are responsible for most of the live gatherings on the planet. Adler believes that event organizing and socialization is as fundamental as food, clothing, and shelter as part of the human experience.
Previously, Adler served as V.P. of Corporate Communications for media companies Macmillan Inc. and Primedia where he was known for innovative initiatives that broke through the clutter of the mundane. He was a startup guy from the age of 21 when he launched a society magazine for the nation’s capital, called Washington Dossier, and sold it after a 15-year run innovating and using new approaches to cover the human side of power, including one of the first curated lists of the Top 1,000 Most Powerful People in Washington, D.C.
Throughout his career, he has believed in the power of leadership and in bringing people together to solve problems. He has held numerous leadership roles including with the U.S. State Department as a consultant where he led initiatives with the chief of protocol including the Patrons of Diplomacy Campaign to endow the educational initiatives of the State Department, initiating the first Global Chiefs of Protocol Conference, and the Diplomatic Culinary Partnerships’ American Chef Corp. After the 9/11 tragedy, he became the co-chair of CEME (the Convention, Exhibition, Meeting, and Events Initiative), which was created to help rebuild the event industry in New York City.
Adler resides in Washington, D.C. and is currently active in several nonprofit, professional organizations and companies, including SISO (Society of Independent Show Organizers), The Richard Attias and Associates Advisory Board, the Fine Arts Committee of the State Department of the United States, the QUESTion Project, and ENVENTU.