Karamo Brown, culture expert and television host for the Emmy-nominated Netflix series Queer Eye, is set to speak at PCMA’s signature annual event for the business events industry.
His session, “Know Thyself: Using Your Uniqueness to Create Success” is part of the Convening Leaders “Disrupt & Deliver” program taking place Jan. 6-9, at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh. Brown will share how he embraces and strategically utilizes the strengths of his roles as an openly gay, black, single father and psychotherapist to achieve success.
“We often get into spaces where we dull who we are because we fear being judged or not being accepted, which can create emotional and mental distress, and you have to get over that in order to achieve all you’re destined to achieve in life,” Brown says. “Bringing every bit of your identity to the forefront is the definition of diversity.”
His participation supports “Disrupt & Deliver’s” Ascent Studio, an education track focusing on diversity and inclusion. Ascent is a PCMA initiative to promote inclusion and diversity across the business events industry. It seeks to empower those challenged by gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity or disabilities to find success in the industry, and strives to motivate and educate decision makers on the business case and best practices for inclusive workplaces and events.
“Our decision to create the Ascent Studio was driven by our strong belief that inclusion strengthens our businesses, industry and world,” says Sherrif Karamat, PCMA president and CEO. “In this studio, participants will learn what motivates and educates leaders and decision makers in the space of diversity, which makes Karamo Brown the perfect inspirational candidate and ambassador to offer his cultural knowledge.”
Brown began his television career on the 2004 season of MTV’s The Real World reality series. He founded 6in10.org, an organization addressing the mental health and self-esteem of HIV-affected individuals, and received the 2018 Human Rights Campaign Visibility Award. Karamo was invited by the Obama administration to help create policies to provide after-school support to LGBTQ youth. He is an active member of the Never Again MSD gun-control movement after his Florida high school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, was the site of a fatal shooting in 2018.
Brown joins 2019 Convening Leaders speakers:
- Nadya Okamoto, founder and executive director of Period
- Seth Godin, founder and CEO of Godin Productions
- Dan Sundt, president and chief experience officer of CXO Marketing
- Molly Breazeale, master facilitator, Fierce Inc.
- Steve Pemberton, chief human resources officer, Globoforce
Convening Leaders 2019 will feature nine content themes to educate and inspire attendees on latest industry issue, including diversity and inclusion; the business of events; event strategy and design; innovation; lifestyle; leadership; media; audience engagement and acquisition; and trending now, which discovers the hottest, newest and most inspiring events and entertainment insights, all aimed at inspiring and educating on the latest industry issues and hot topics so that participants leave motivated to apply learnings to their own events.
PCMA educates, inspires and listens, creating meaningful experiences where passion, purpose and commerce come together. They are the world’s largest community for business events strategists providing senior education and networking for the business events sector. PCMA crafts and shares knowledge and market intelligence, enabling organizations to make informed business decisions while providing a platform for peer-to-peer exchange. Headquartered in Chicago, PCMA has 17 chapters throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico with members in more than 40 countries. For more info, visit pcma.org.
