Spotlight: Meet Director of Enterprise Strategy Jim O’Donnell 

Jim O’Donnell has rejoined Convene in a newly created role as leader of enterprise sales and partnership strategy. The former regional sales and strategy leader at Convene now oversees a team of six responsible for managing meeting and event sales for high-volume, global accounts as well as third-party agency partners. He is what you might call a Convene ‘boomerang’ team member and is no stranger to the ebbs and flows of the meetings and events industry.

O’Donnell had previously led regional sales teams and strategy for Convene in a high-growth period before the pandemic. From early 2018 into mid-2020, O’Donnell directed sales strategy, including recruiting and promoting team members, to execute on the repositioning or opening of eight new locations across three U.S. cities. O’Donnell shifted focus from regional sales to leading enterprise strategy and key Convene partnerships during a volatile time in the events industry, bringing stability until he departed from Convene in late 2021.

We spoke with O’Donnell about his career journey, taking the role as senior director of enterprise strategy at Convene, and his vision for the enterprise sales and partnerships team at Convene.

Tell us about your experience at different organizations in the industry and how that has shaped your approach here at Convene

My roots in the events industry are in the hospitality sector. For about 15 years before arriving at Convene in 2018, I worked with leading hotel brands in property, regional, and global sales roles across multiple markets, including Philadelphia, New York, and Las Vegas.

After departing Convene in 2022, I joined American Express Global Business Travel as North America head of sales for the strategic meetings management segment. After leading the meetings and events team through a period of transition, I left Global Business Travel and focused on consulting full-time. I’ve always been passionate about hospitality and events. As a consultant, I specialized in helping hospitality, events, and meetings management clients drive efficient and sustainable growth.

I’m also passionate about teaching and developing the next generation of hospitality and event professionals. I’ve taught at the undergraduate and graduate levels as an adjunct professor with a specialty in hospitality and sales courses since 2013. Specifically, I’m passionate about the intersection of business and the experience of events — the art and the science, the heart and the mind — to help create those memorable experiences that educate, inspire, and generate ‘return on events’ for our clients.

What does the enterprise program entail at Convene, and how do you think about serving clients at this level?

I oversee events and meetings for enterprise clients at Convene, which typically comprise large, often multinational companies that host events across our global network throughout the year. Increasingly, our enterprise clients are organizing events with elevated levels of strategic forethought around their meetings and events calendars. With standard procedures in place to manage approvals, budgets, and the procurement of event spaces and services, these enterprise clients are taking more control over their spending.

We drive savings and value for our key partners with tools such as preferred supplier partnerships and master service agreements with pre-negotiated legal and business terms to reduce risk, time, and friction in sourcing and contracting events. Like all of our clients, our enterprise accounts appreciate that we provide a single point of contact to streamline event planning and production for our clients.

Enterprise relationships are integral to growth and informing our real estate pipeline with our enterprise clients' current and future market needs. Understanding the client and, therefore larger industry needs, we can prioritize the products and markets where we are needed most. I’m very excited to connect with enterprise clients and partners to help provide strategic solutions.

What are you looking forward to having come back to Convene on this growing enterprise team?

How often do you get the opportunity to return to a place as special as Convene and lead a team that you largely recruited, hired, and promoted into their roles four or five years after the fact? I went from coach to fan, but I never stopped rooting for Convene. So, when the opportunity arose to return, it was hard to pass up. In addition to Convene’s world-class products, I had the opportunity to lead a team at what is now a truly global business with a refined segmentation to reach even more clients.

Events are integral to all parts of an enterprise business to collaborate on strategy, promote company culture across distributed teams, or to launch a new product. Meetings and events are strategic tools, and our enterprise program enables companies to have a partner with Convene to view these off-site gatherings through the same global lens.

Meetings make a difference; events inspire. From my days at a hotel front desk to complex strategic meetings management programs, and in my return to Enterprise and Partnerships at Convene, collaborating and problem solving is what drives me. My goal is to enable the best possible user experience — one that’s memorable and magical.

Interested in learning more about our enterprise program and strategic partnerships? Reach out to get started.