Starfish - Stephanie Hansen

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: Stephanie Hansen, 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):

Stephanie Hansen, 25 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 Gail
Cayetano, 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
Stephanie 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, Stephanie works with Gail 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 Stephanie 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, Stephanie 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 Stephanie and Gail, set
to take place in February 2009.

And lastly, in between the running of a business, Stephanie and Gail 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. Stephanie 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):

Stephanie arrived at event planning with a PR background from The Rogers Group.
When she realized her passion for events, Stephanie moved to Events in Motion,
a red-carpet events agency specializing in the production of movie premieres
including Ice Age 2 and The Departed, among others. Here she also produced
corporate and charity events, including a celebrity poker tournament to benefit
the Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation. Stephanie then became the
account manager on marketing events for Kodak and Hewlett-Packard. Stephanie
now calls Starfish Creative Events her home, bringing her extensive knowledge of
many different types of events to SCE.