Donna Valentine, CMP, President

Donna has been working in the meetings and events industry for over 20 years. Her career includes 13 years' experience with Westin/Starwood Hotels and Resorts. As Director of Global Accounts for Starwood, she represented the company's portfolio of properties and gained experience planning client events nation-wide and internationally. She has held director-level positions for several San Francisco-based destination and meeting management firms. In addition, she was national sales manager for the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau. She founded Excel Meetings & Events in 2001.

Over the course of her career she has planned, produced and managed important meetings and events for corporations and associations including Alza, Aspect Software, Atmos Energy, CMEA Ventures, FT Ventures, Serena Software, Oracle, Peoplesoft, PG&E, Philips Medical Systems, Sega, VISA, and many others.

She holds a degree in Graphic Design with minors in English and Italian from San Jose State University. She earned the CMP (Certified Meeting Professional) in 1990 and recently completed a Certificate in Marketing from UC Berkeley.

Jon Wollenhaupt, Vice President

Jon has over 20 years of experience in marketing communications, public relations and brand strategy development. He has held management positions in marketing with enterprise software companies and has worked for marketing and public relations agencies.

While working as Director of Marketing Communications for MITEM Corporation, he was responsible for all marketing and public relations programs for a family of health care software solutions including a clinical portal and a laboratory services outreach solution. This family of software solutions was designed to improve the productivity of clinicians by integrating, extending and enhancing the hospital information systems used by health care organizations. Jon was also responsible for managing MITEM’s participation and exhibition at health care related user group conferences and trade shows including the Medical Users Software Exchange (MUSE) and The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). Jon attended, exhibited and made presentations at these conferences for five consecutive years.

At Excel Meetings & Events, he worked closely with staff from the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research to market, promote and produce the 2008 Governor’s Conference on Small Business and Entrepreneurship that was held in Los Angeles. For the 2008 conference, Excel Meetings & Events was responsible for hotel site selection and contract negotiations, A/V production, marketing, theme development, graphic design, web registration, budget management and sponsorship development.

In addition, he helped developed an assessment program for pharmaceutical company’s annual scientific conference. During this project, he worked closely with company staff including the Senior Director of Science and Technology in charge of Pharmaceutical Products to determine measurable strategic goals. He also designed a post-meeting questionnaire that was used to assess attendee learning, employee satisfaction and identify barriers to product research innovation and data sharing.

Jon holds a BA in Economics from San Francisco State University and an MBA from Golden Gate University.

Kirby is an unrivaled creative visionary and brand strategist. He has worked extensively in corporate and marketing communications since 1980. He began his career in design and visual communications in the legendary studio of Saul Bass & Associates where he worked directly for the academy award winning film director and designer. As a result, Kirby has deep experience as a visual and editorial marketer. He has expertise in print, broadcast, and online environments.

Prior to working with Excel Meetings and Events, Kirby directed his own communications firm where he developed advertising and branding programs for a diverse range of clients including Kaiser Permanente, California Healthcare Foundation, CalRHIO, Hewlett Packard, Disney, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America among many others.

At Excel Meetings and Events, Kirby works with clients to develop engaging visual identities and themes for conferences, summits and corporate events. In addition, He brings his many creative talents to client projects including web sites, logos, collateral, brand strategy, packaging, and corporate identity.

He holds a BA in English with a minor in Art from the University of the Americas, Mexico City.