CHICAGO — Presenting to executive leadership can feel like stepping into a world where the language is sharper, and the stakes are higher. Besides confidence, another key to making an impact in the boardroom is fluency in the language of the C-suite.
Trade Show Executive connected with some C-suite leaders in the industry to get insights on the key terms, metrics and mindsets that resonate the most with top leaders. From understanding what strategic alignment means to knowing which KPIs matter most and to who, we’re decoding the language of the C-suite to ensure the next time you’re in the boardroom you’re not just heard — you’re understood.
Chief Financial Officer: David Doft, CFO, Emerald
Key Words They’re Listening For: Happy customers drive our financial success. When I’m in the boardroom, I’m listening for key indicators that directly tie to creating value for our customers and thus sustainable growth for the business. Terms like “ROI,” “customer value,” “retention rates” and “strategic investment” catch my attention. These concepts are critical because they shape every decision we make as a leadership team.
Understanding what creates value for our customers ensures we continue earning a greater share of their marketing budgets. If they see clear, measurable outcomes, they’ll keep investing in us — and that positions us as a long-term partner, not just a vendor.
Equally important, being intentional about where and how we invest allows us to optimize capital allocation. It’s not about spending because it “feels good”; it’s about spending with purpose to deliver impact. We have tougher conversations when proposed “investment” cannot be translated into incremental value for our customers. That kind of discipline helps us improve retention rates allowing for increased focus on new customer acquisition, maintain pricing power, protect margins, and build a resilient business.
And when leaders in the room are honest about challenges or gaps, it opens the door to productive problem-solving and long-term success.
Top Priority Metrics: I rely on data to make informed decisions, focusing on core metrics that demonstrate a clear understanding of the business. And then, I ask a lot of questions about drivers of key indicators like salesforce productivity, marketing effectiveness and the cost to acquire an attendee, and ROI for exhibitors and sponsors. These metrics offer a tangible view of business health and shed light on opportunities to optimize our spend for stronger outcomes.
Everything ties back to value creation. When we understand what drives customer satisfaction and retention — whether through Net Promoter Scores, survey feedback, our three-year strategic plans, or other data — we’re better positioned to build strong, lasting relationships and reduce our reliance on constant acquisition to refill a leaky bucket of customers. That, in turn, frees us to make long-term investment decisions, optimize capital allocation and drive shareholder value.
Equally important are the metrics behind that story: customer retention, pacing vs. plan, pipeline strength, and attendee acquisition costs. These numbers reflect how the business is truly performing and whether we’re progressing toward our goals.
And because Emerald is a publicly traded company, these metrics matter even more. Consistent performance and transparency are essential — for our board, our investors, and our employees who are all invested in our success.
Tips and Tricks for Presentations: Presenting to leadership is about preparation, clarity and a deep understanding of your work. I expect teams to know their business inside and out and understand why they spend every dollar in their plan. Know the purpose of every dollar spent and be ready to show how it drives value — whether that’s attracting attendees, boosting engagement, or improving ROI for exhibitors and sponsors. Leaders find confidence in people who truly know their business.
When preparing for these conversations, ask yourself — as Hervé Sedky, Emerald’s President & CEO, often says — “What does beautiful look like?” That mindset helps you bring forward clear, thoughtful solutions that not only solve immediate challenges but also support long-term success.
And don’t be afraid of questions. My job as CFO is to ask them — not to catch anyone off guard, but to understand the rationale behind decisions. If you’ve done the work and know your numbers, there’s no reason to be nervous. Be clear, be prepared, and be honest — authenticity goes a long way.
Chief Operating Officer: Mike Carlucci, COO, Clarion Events North America
Key Words They’re Listening For: I listen for words that signal forward momentum — “growth,” “alignment,” “customer experience” and “execution.” These aren’t just buzzwords; they’re the pillars that reflect how we scale our impact and drive our success at Clarion. As COO, I focus on how we lift up the business by simplifying complexity and fostering environments where our teams thrive. If what we’re discussing doesn’t ultimately improve the experience for our customers or empower our people, it needs a second look.
Top Priority Metrics: The metrics I value most are those that tell a meaningful story — how our customers engage, how our products perform, and how we’re progressing toward our strategic goals. KPIs like NPS, customer retention, and pipeline health provide critical insight into where we’re delivering value and where we have room to innovate.
These data points help identify opportunities, remove roadblocks, and drive smarter, faster decisions. I’m especially focused on blending traditional metrics with fresh insights to fuel innovation and elevate the customer experience.
Tips and Tricks for Presentations: Keep it simple, make it relevant, and connect the dots. Don’t just share what you did — explain why it matters for the business and our customers. When you frame your updates around how you’re helping us grow, innovate, or remove friction for the customer, you’re more likely to leave a lasting impression. And most of all, be yourself — authenticity builds trust, and trust builds influence. Communicate with clarity, purpose, and genuine enthusiasm — and you’ll stand out.
Related. Five Tips for Event Branding
Chief Marketing Officer: Mickey Wilson, CMO, Freeman
Key Words They’re Listening For: I’m tuned into three critical areas: financial performance, where we’re seeing momentum, and where we’re hitting challenges. But I’m not just listening to the numbers — I’m listening for the story they tell me about what needs to happen next.
As a hypothetical, if our CEO mentions that enterprise sales are crushing it but we’re struggling in the SMB market, that’s my signal to pivot. It tells me exactly where to reallocate our marketing budget, which messages to amplify, and how to refocus our team’s efforts. Marketing can’t operate in a vacuum — we need to be strategic partners who respond to real business needs in real-time. Those boardroom conversations are essentially my playbook for where to direct our energy and resources.
Top Priority Metrics: I listen for actionable insights that answer the “so what” question — data that directly informs our marketing decisions. Sure, it’s great to hear we generated 10,000 impressions, but what I really want to know is: how many of those turned into qualified sales conversations? Are we targeting audiences that actually convert, not just engage? How are we impacting sales velocity and customer lifetime value?
The key is connecting marketing activities to business outcomes. When someone shares campaign metrics with me, I’m always thinking, “What does this tell us we should do differently tomorrow?” That mindset shift from reporting vanity metrics to proving real impact is what transforms marketing from a cost center into a revenue driver. I need data that helps me make smarter decisions, not just data that looks good in a report.
Tips and Tricks for Presentations: First, know your audience. Before you walk into that room, think like a CEO or CFO. What problems are they trying to solve? What keeps them up at night? Frame your updates around business challenges and opportunities, not just your departmental activities. If you can answer their questions before they ask them, you’re already ahead of the game.
Second, never bring problems without solutions. If lead quality is declining, don’t just report the bad news — come with your analysis of why it’s happening and at least two potential paths forward. Leadership wants strategic partners who think beyond just executing tasks. You don’t need all the answers, but showing you’ve thought it through makes all the difference.
Finally, keep it simple. You might have spent weeks on analysis, but you have minutes to make your point. Lead with what matters most — the bottom-line impact — then be ready to dive deeper if they ask. Remember, confidence comes from preparation. The more you understand how your work connects to broader business goals, the more credibly you can speak about your impact and recommendations.
Chief Technology and Information Officer: Vincent L’Erario, CIO, Smithbucklin
Key Words They’re Listening For: How many people or how many dollars does the concept affect? Good technology solutions should help you do better work faster or cheaper than without it. Great technology should help many people do better work faster.
Where do we have a capability gap and can tech help fill it in a cost-positive way? This is one of the core value-adds of enterprise technology.
If there is a tech ask: do we have a team/process available at the company that can own it? Is the solution aimed at our scale and spending ability? Are there proven successes with the technology out in the market? My job isn’t just to identify technology, it’s to implement it well, grow its impact on the company, and manage risk of the solution being available and supported during the lifetime of the need.
Top Priority Metrics: If on my service side, where are the number of tickets and time to resolution trending? If they are going up, that usually means there are opportunities to fix or build something. Are people asking questions that can be easily answered with a well-written white paper or with a bot? Find ways to help users help themselves and both sides of the exchange benefit.
On my product/applications side, where is the iron triangle of cost/time/scope trending? Every good CIO is a part-time project manager. I am always looking to add value to any project team with my experience and management levers.
Beyond metrics, I also value hearing where I can support someone’s growth. Whether it be sharing wisdom, helping define a personal development plan, or making a crucial connection to my network; having someone on your team that may outgrow their current position is a good problem to have.
Tips and Tricks for Presentations: Young professionals often don’t have full access to information, while senior leaders usually work with a broader set of facts. Be curious about what you may not know and find ways to draw that out of the leader knowing that they want to share data but may not remember where there is shared knowledge. Leaders may not be able to share information with complete candor due to confidentiality, sensitivity, or other non-nefarious reasons, but we want our teams to have everything they need to succeed.
A good leader wants to avoid biases. Don’t be afraid to challenge our thinking and specifically challenge certain known biases like recency, sunk cost fallacy, etc.
If you are presenting a problem, propose a solution or be detailed on the parameters of the issue so we can work together to solve it. We always want a team that learns from issues and mistakes to improve the status quo.
Chief Customer Officer: Chris Dolnack, Senior Vice President & Chief Customer Officer, NSSF – The Firearm Trade Association
Key Words They’re Listening For: As much as I’m listening for anything having to do with customer and member satisfaction and revenue and membership growth, I’m also listening to how the speaker delivers information. Do they project confidence in themselves and in the information itself. Does the speaker not only understand the what, do they understand the why enough that they can provide some context of what we can expect moving forward.
I’m also listening for ownership and accountability. If there is an issue that is creating customer friction, do they suggest a solution or tell me what they did to reduce or eliminate the source of the angst. And did they share the credit with others that they worked with to resolve the situation. Do they emphasize the we, and not me. Cultural fit is just so important for successful organizations.
Top Priority Metrics: I’m interested in key performance indicators tied to revenue growth, registration pacing, membership growth and retention, Net Promoter Score, attendee acquisition cost, attendee demographic trends, and customer satisfaction. All these data points are tied into our organizational goals.
The KPIs can alert you to opportunities as well as potential challenges. For example, we’re seeing a significant increase in the number of first-time trade show attendees for the third consecutive year. We learned that there is a more recent turnover within the industry as Baby Boomers age out or choose to retire earlier post-pandemic. We also learned that 30-year-old attendees desire a different experience than 60-year-old attendees, and we were able to design entirely different networking and education experiences to deliver value to these younger customers.
Tips and Tricks for Presentations: Provide a short overall summary with a couple of data points and some comparative context such as “23 weeks out we are 97% sold out versus 94% in 2024” or “the XYZ conference attendee satisfaction was 4.8 compared to 4.5 in 2024.”
Stay on top of industry trends. Subscribe to key trade journals and newsletters, digest event industry studies and develop an active peer network with whom you can share non-competitive/proprietary trend information.
Time is the most precious resource to a C-suite executive. Learn how and when to share information in the most appropriate manner. That may be a phone call, an email, a text or a video conference. Is the update urgent? Is there already a call or meeting scheduled when you can share what you’ve learned?
When asked a direct question, give a direct answer. If you don’t know the answer, acknowledge that you don’t have the information at your fingertips and then get the answer.
Chief People Officer: Janice Rogers, Chief People Officer, Diversified
Key Words They’re Listening For: Employee Experience (EX) & Culture, and Customer Experience (CX) – Our industry is all about people connections. In order to grow our businesses, we need to have flawless customer experiences. To do so, we need to create strong cultures in our workplaces and a positive, inclusive and welcoming employee experience for our employees who deliver our products.
Employee retention/turnover – A direct barometer of culture — while some employee turnover is healthy, high turnover leads to churn, instability, decreases in productivity and higher employee acquisition costs.
Revenue, operating profit, and margins – HR people are concerned about the financial health of the business, too! Strong revenue numbers, and a high margin (how much revenue we retain after costs) are indicators of a healthy business.
Revenue per employee – If you grow headcount without growing revenue accordingly, your margins will shrink.
Long-term value creation – We play the long game, so we want to operate businesses that will create lasting value over time and become an integral part of our portfolio.
Top Priority Metrics: [From the key words I listen for] employee retention/turnover, revenue, operating profit and margins, and revenue per employee.
Employee engagement and inclusion statistics – What do employees think about our culture and business operations?
Learning and development engagement statistics – How many of our employees are taking advantage of those opportunities?
Promotion Rate – How many people are getting promoted internally?
NPS or Net Promoter Scores: These indicate how our customers feel about our business and whether they would recommend our products to others.
Tips and Tricks for Presentations: Don’t be nervous! Executives are people too. Some key tips to reducing anxiety and making a strong presentation include:
- Be prepared. Know your topic inside and out. Practice in order to feel confident in presenting, even without visual aids.
- Be concise. Hit the high points and convey the important data without belaboring the issue.
- Be articulate. Know how to put your conversation into business terminology that is meaningful, like how it impacts employee experience, revenue, growth, etc.
- Be organized. Just like in writing, have a beginning (key message), middle (supporting data), and end (why this is important, and what might be some next steps).
- Be proactive. Anticipate potential follow up questions and be prepared to answer them.
- Be human. Listen well, be open to and appreciative of feedback, and don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know, but I can find out.”
- Be a good closer. Make sure you understand the key takeaways from your conversation, any follow-up items, and timeframe for response.
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