Epic Events Podcast with
Sasha Frieze

From Event Planner to Strategic Leader: How to Get a Seat at the Table

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  • Sasha Frieze

    Sasha Frieze is the author of the Chief Events Officer's Playbook, shortlisted for the Business Book of the Year Award. With 25+ years in the events industry spanning agencies, corporates, associations, and commercial conference companies, she now works with event professionals and C-suite leaders to close the gap between event delivery and organizational strategy. She coaches, trains, and consults on how events can drive transformational change rather than just activity.

About the Episode

Event planners are brilliant problem solvers. So why are so many of them still stuck in the execution lane?

In this episode, Muhammad Younas sits down with Sasha Frieze to dig into why the events industry has been talking about getting a seat at the table for decades without cracking it. Sasha argues that the issue is not recognition. It is positioning. The shift from event planner to strategic leader is not a job title upgrade. It is a fundamentally different way of thinking about what events are for.

Sasha walks through the Event Transformation Blueprint from her book, a 10-step framework built around four core questions: why you are creating the event, who it is for, what the experience should be, and what the intended impact is. She explains why participant-centered design, not organizational convenience, is what separates forgettable events from transformational ones.

The conversation also covers the practical side: how to talk to leadership in the language of transformation rather than logistics, how mid-career planners can shift how they are perceived without waiting for a title change, and why the “order taker” model is self-reinforcing and how to break out of it.

If your contribution to the organization is still being measured by headcount and venue choices, this episode will give you a different way to think and talk about your work.

Key Takeaways:

  • Stop leading with logistics. When you sit down with a senior stakeholder, open with the transformation the event should create for the organization, not the timeline, the venue, or the delegate count.
  • Report on change, not activity. Replace flat metrics like attendance numbers with a one-page dashboard showing the three measurable changes the event delivered.
  • Put the participant at the center. Events designed around the organization’s journey consistently underperform compared to those where every element is built around what the attendee gets out of it.
  • Interrogate your briefs. Accepting every brief as handed to you creates more of the same work. Asking strategic questions early positions you as a partner, not a supplier.
  • Own your introductions. Telling someone you are an event planner tells them nothing. Telling them you create events that drive leads, change behavior, or grow membership tells a strategic story.
  • The Chief Events Officer mindset is not a title. It is about building influence, leading on strategy, and connecting event outcomes to what the organization actually cares about.
  • Anything that could be a webinar should be a webinar. Live events must create real transformation through energy, conversation, and human connection, or they are not earning the investment.
  • Use every internal touchpoint as a strategy conversation. When your CEO is giving the opening keynote, that relationship-building moment is also a chance to demonstrate strategic thinking.