American Marketing Association Selects Sessionboard to Connect Its Speaker Network, Awards, and Event Content
The American Marketing Association (AMA) has selected Sessionboard to bring speaker management, calls for proposals, reviews, agenda management, and awards into a connected platform with a Speaker CRM that gives its teams a shared view of the experts across its community.
For AMA, the decision addressed the day-to-day work of delivering programs while supporting a broader goal: making the knowledge and relationships developed through those programs more valuable across the organization.
“It’s the shift from running events to stewarding a community,” said Elise Melendez, Senior Director, Cross Community Experience at the American Marketing Association. “When speakers, honorees, and programs are connected, you can see how people grow with you over time. That knowledge stops living in one project and becomes something the whole organization can use.”
What AMA Looked for in Its Technology
AMA’s evaluation considered how a platform would support its team, serve its speakers and volunteers, and fit into its existing technology stack.
Sessionboard stood out for its ability to connect the speaker and content lifecycle, work out of the box without an IT build, and give speakers a self-service portal. Its native Cvent integration was also an important consideration, allowing speaker and session information to flow into event production.
“Sessionboard stood out because it was built for this,” said Melendez. “It works out of the box with no IT build required, gives speakers a self-service portal, and covers the full lifecycle in one place.”
For associations evaluating their own technology, AMA’s decision highlights a useful question: How will information move from one stage of the work to the next—and into the systems the organization already relies on?
A Speaker Network the Whole Organization Can Use
AMA saw an opportunity to give its teams a shared home for relationships with speakers and thought leaders across its programming.
With a Speaker CRM, knowledge about those experts can remain available beyond an individual event or project. Teams can build on existing relationships, identify relevant expertise, and consider people for new opportunities across the organization.
“We wanted one home for these relationships that every team can draw on, across all our programming efforts,” said Melendez. “It frees our team to spend less time searching and more time building relationships.”
That approach gives associations another way to think about the value of their speaker database: as an ongoing resource for the organization’s education, programming, and community engagement.
A Connected Experience for Speakers and Reviewers
Calls for proposals, reviews, content, and agenda management were central to AMA’s selection. The team placed particular importance on the experience of the people contributing their time and expertise.
“People who submit proposals and volunteer as reviewers give us real time and care, and the process should honor that,” said Melendez.
Connecting submissions, reviews, materials, and agendas to one speaker record supports continuity throughout the process. AMA will begin with the Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education, building on an established process and working alongside its committed reviewers.
For other associations, that offers a practical evaluation lens: Consider the experience of everyone participating in the program, including submitters, reviewers, speakers, and staff.
Connecting Recognition With Future Participation
AMA’s decision to adopt Sessionboard’s Awards module reflects the same thinking about long-term relationships.
Award entrants and honorees represent expertise that can contribute to the association well beyond the awards program itself. Connecting awards with the broader speaker network helps AMA identify those opportunities more intentionally.
“The people we honor are often the people we’d love to see integrated into our programming efforts for the community,” said Melendez. “Bringing our awards portfolio into Sessionboard helps us be more intentional about finding the right leader for the right moment. Recognition becomes the beginning of a relationship, not a single moment.”
It is a useful consideration for any association with an awards portfolio: How can the expertise surfaced through recognition inform future programming and strengthen relationships with the community?
A Broader View of Content and Community
Together, these decisions reflect AMA’s interest in a platform that connects the people behind its content with the programs they contribute to over time.
“I really appreciate how thoughtful the AMA team has been about this decision,” said Chris Carver, Co-Founder and CEO of Sessionboard. “They’ve asked detailed questions about how this will work for their team and what it could make possible across AMA. That’s what gets me excited about Content as a Platform, connecting the experts, relationships, and content an organization can keep building on. Their questions push us to make Sessionboard better, too.”
AMA’s definition of success extends beyond implementation. It includes a team working with greater ease and focus, volunteers able to concentrate on contributing their expertise, and speakers and honorees who feel known.
As Melendez described it: “We can point to new voices we brought forward because we could finally see the full strength of our network.”
About the American Marketing Association
As the leading global professional marketing association, the AMA is the essential community for marketers. From students and practitioners to executives and academics, we aim to elevate the profession, deepen knowledge, and make a lasting impact. The AMA is home to five premier scholarly journals including: Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, Journal of International Marketing, and Journal of Interactive Marketing. Our industry-leading training events and conferences define future forward practices, while our professional development and PCM® professional certification advance knowledge. With almost 70 chapters and a presence on 350 college campuses across North America, the AMA fosters a vibrant community of marketers.
The association’s philanthropic arm, the AMA’s Foundation, is inspiring a more diverse industry and ensuring marketing research impacts public good. The AMA Foundation strengthens and elevates the marketing profession by advancing knowledge, building a global community of marketing leaders, and supporting marketing initiatives that drive innovation and societal impact.
AMA views marketing as the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. You can learn more about AMA’s learning programs and certifications, conferences and events, and scholarly journals at AMA.org.
About Sessionboard
Sessionboard is a next-generation speaker and content management platform built to connect the entire event content lifecycle, from sourcing experts and managing submissions to activating content throughout the year. By focusing deeply on the content process and the people behind it, Sessionboard helps organizations deliver stronger programming, drive registrations, deepen year-round engagement, and grow non-dues revenue.
