CHICAGO — Wendy Siminski, who most recently was Senior Vice President for AdvaMed’s Conference & Events Department, succumbed to cancer after a long and courageous fight. While Siminski was just 46 at the time of her passing, she had accomplished much over the course of her career, including successfully producing and developing some top U.S. trade shows. Among these is AdvaMed’s MedTech Conference, which typically drew more than 3,000 attendees, including senior executives of some of the world’s top medical device companies.
Last fall, Trade Show Executive highlighted some of Siminski’s achievements in its October cover story, “Medical Device Maven,” in which she talked about her work ushering in AdvaMed’s events through the COVID-19 pandemic; and how her early career goal of being an FBI profiler morphed into becoming a marketing strategist, self-described data geek, and ultimately event production and organizational growth guru. Before joining AdvaMed, she worked for almost six years at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) and several Washington, D.C.–based associations. But her gig at AdvaMed was “the highlight of my career,” she said, because she was responsible for event management and marketing, and also operations, sales, programming and international outreach.
“It’s the dream job that I always wanted,” she said in the interview.
The key to good marketing — and effective events — is creating an emotional connection and communicating that connection through all aspects of the show. But she took it far beyond the trade show floor, creating connections through her work to make events more diverse, equitable and inclusive, and sharing everything she has learned by mentoring others.
But it was Siminski’s two daughters, Kira, 13, and Ashley, 12, who remained her guiding light in all things professional and personal. They made her dream job at AdvaMed possible by reminding her to keep her focus on what was truly important, not just urgent in the moment.
TSE extends its condolences to Siminski’s family, friends, loved ones and colleagues. To honor her memory, donations to METAvivor are welcomed. The organization supports Metastatic Breast Cancer research.
