Company: Starfish Creative Events, Los Angeles, California
Company Description: Starfish Creative Events is a full service, turnkey events management agency catering to corporate and entertainment clientele who aim to market, promote or build their brand through events. SCE prides itself on specializing in the conceptualization, design and execution of these events.
Nomination Category: Individual Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Young Entrepreneur

Nomination Title: Gail Cayetano, Managing Partner, Starfish Creative Events Inc.

1. Describe for the judges the activities and accomplishments of the nominated young entrepreneur during the eligibility period (up to 500 words):

Gail Cayetano, 26 years old, formed Starfish Creative Events (SCE), an event
management agency catering to corporate and entertainment clients who are
looking to brand their products through events, with her business partner
Stephanie Hansen, in the fall of 2006 as a sole proprietorship. In the summer
of 2008 SCE officially became a corporation, handling all types of marketing
events including press events, product launches and premiers. Over the past
year Gail has helped increase the company’s revenue over 3000%, with the
company’s end of year sales forecast totaling over half a million dollars.

In addition to increasing revenue, Gail works with Stephanie to manage all of
their business accounts, including all of the design, management, execution and
recaps of the events. As a boutique 2-person agency, they regularly compete
with, and win over, large event marketing agencies for major corporate accounts.
Just this past year Gail has helped secure, and manage work for, large clients
such as Virgin Charter, Deep Silver Video Game Publishing, Coin-Op TV, Konami
Digital Entertainment, David Hasselhoff and University of California Irvine
Medical Center, among many others. A few examples of these projects include:

- University of California Irvine Medical Center (currently a multi-million
dollar construction site, the largest that Orange County, CA has ever seen). SCE
is hired to run all grand opening special events.

- Konami Digital Entertainment (one of the largest video game publishers in the
world). SCE ran all of its promotional events for their newly released video
game Rock Revolution on a nationwide, 24 city stop tour in conjunction with
major recording artists Linkin Park, all within a 6 week time period.

Further, Gail has helped recruit and instate a stellar Board of Advisors to help
take the company to the next level. The BOA is made up of experts in different
business fields including finance, public relations, marketing, operations and
legal. The BOA includes Joe DiLeonardo (VP of Marketing of Ferrara Pan Candy
Co.), Brian Pope (Chief Operating Officer of Virgin Charter), Linda Mounce (Sr
Vice President of Alliance Bank), Shelly Holmes (Partner at The Rogers Group)
and Mae Ho (Sr Associate of Davis Shapiro Lewit & Hayes LLP). The first annual
Board meeting is currently being planned by Gail and Stephanie, set to take
place in February 2009.

And lastly, in between the running of a business, Gail and Stephanie are active
volunteers with the Davyz Youth Foundation based in Los Angeles, CA, helping
kids achieve healthy lifestyles by encouraging them to take part in outdoor
activities. Gail helps coach a youth cheerleading team of girls ages 6 through
10, who are practicing to go to their first cheer competition in November.

2. List the URLs (web addresses) of any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that you would like the judges to see that support your entry. IMPORTANT: List each URL on a separate line, begin each URL with http://, and enclose each URL in square brackets. For example, [http://www.yourcompany.com/pressrelease.html]:

All most recent press coverage can be found on the company website:

http://www.starfish-events.com/buzz.html

3. Provide a brief biography of the nominated entrepreneur (up to 100 words):

Gail’s career began at Activision, where, as an events manager for its biggest
franchise, Call of Duty, Gail learned how to manage a multimillion dollar
account for an AAA title. From there Gail moved to Makai Events, where she ran
nationwide Suzuki events. Following Makai Gail was recruited as the promotions
& special events manager for Konami Digital Entertainment, working on popular
video games such as DanceDanceRevolution. It was there that Gail realized she
enjoyed working on the agency side, and is now happily settled at Starfish
Creative Events, where many of her past employers are now her clients.