Scaling with 470 Speakers. How EarthX Simplified Operations Using Sessionboard

EarthX hosts a leading environmental conference, the Congress of Conferences, annually. In 2025, the conference brought together 470 speakers and 459 sessions, each requiring coordination of bios, headshots, presentations, scheduling, and communication. Managing this volume through the previous method of scattered spreadsheets, email threads, and disconnected tools was time-consuming and error-prone. 

By adopting Sessionboard as our centralized speaker management hub, we were able to streamline team collaboration, simplify reporting, reduce communication bottlenecks, and save significant time across the planning process. Additionally, features such as native integrations with Swoogo and dynamic embeddable agendas made syncing data and publishing agendas faster, easier, and more reliable.

Why Did You Initially Decide to Use Sessionboard?
Answer: To Streamline Our Workflows…

“We were looking for a platform that could help with onboarding our speakers, gathering assets, and assist with building out our agenda. Our overarching goal was to streamline our workflows.”

The team was looking for a single system to replace the patchwork of emails, spreadsheets, and disconnected platforms that made speaker management cumbersome. Sessionboard stood out because it streamlined speaker onboarding, agenda planning, and communications in one hub while also providing reliable reporting.

How Much Did You Use Sessionboard Leading Up to Your Event?

“We used Sessionboard daily. It served as our source of truth for tracking speakers, sending emails, and accessing reports to share with the broader team.”

Sessionboard became EarthX’s operational center. The team used it every day to onboard speakers, track task completion, set automated reminders, manage outreach, and keep key stakeholders informed with weekly reports. The tools Sessionboard provided were key to helping keep us on track.

“The ability to set a weekly digest email that can be sent to speakers to remind them of incomplete tasks was a huge time saver.”

What Was the Biggest Impact on You, Your Team, and Your Speakers?

“Having a hub for our speakers to view assignments and get prepared for the conference cuts down on many back and forth emails.”

EarthX improved both their team workflow and speaker experience. The speaker portal gave contributors clear visibility into tasks and information, cutting down on back-and-forth emails and ensuring everyone knew what was expected. By setting up customized portals and assignment rules, the team no longer had to manually track which of the 470 speakers needed which tasks. Since not all speakers required the same deliverables, auto-assigning portals based on the information needed from each group ensured nothing slipped through the cracks, while giving speakers a streamlined view of only the actions relevant to them. This automation saved the staff countless hours of manual coordination and created a smoother, more consistent experience for speakers.

“Utilizing Sessionboard as the source of truth for all data and enabling multiple users to access the platform simultaneously greatly improved our efficiency."

With shared access, the team could view and update records at once, no longer needing to copy and paste information from one system to another or wait for certain assets to be shared out. With all team members accessing one common resource base, they could simply log in and retrieve what they needed right from Sessionboard. For example, the marketing department no longer had to wait on receiving headshots and bios; they could bring them up in real time. Delays were no longer a problem, and each department utilized proper, consistent information.

Roles and permissions added another level of efficiency and control. The team could tailor access so that individual departments only viewed information relevant to their work. Permissions also ensured that sensitive information remained with the right users while still allowing broad access for monitoring progress. With this system, accidental edits were reduced, collaboration became easier, and leadership felt confident that the integrity of the data remained.

“We used both the Swoogo integration and the agenda embeds. Not needing to export and import our data saved a lot of time.”

The Swoogo integration was very useful for our team. Having all session and speaker data automatically flow into Swoogo eliminated the need for duplicate entry, saving us hours of manual work and greatly reducing the risk of errors. Coupled with Sessionboard’s embeddable agenda views, this ensured that our attendees always had access to the most accurate, up-to-date session information. Instead of juggling exports and updates, the team could confidently keep the public agenda aligned with real-time changes, giving attendees a clear picture of the types of sessions being offered while saving staff significant time behind the scenes.

What’s Next for Sessionboard and EarthX?

EarthX plans to continue using Sessionboard across its entire event portfolio. By managing hundreds of sessions and speakers within a single system, the team is well-positioned to scale operations efficiently, reduce manual workload, and maintain consistency across events. This centralized approach also allows EarthX to strengthen long-term relationships with speakers, providing a seamless and professional experience that encourages repeat participation year after year. 

Added features, such as Zapier integrations, have opened up new possibilities for more advanced automations like automatically creating an attendee registration in Swoogo from the information a speaker submits in Sessionboard, and the ability to push data to other systems like Salesforce. These automations help ensure information is never siloed, and workflows can be optimized so that they save the team time.

About EarthX 

EarthX is a nonprofit environmental organization dedicated to educating and inspiring people to take action toward a more sustainable future. Best known for its annual EarthX Congress of Conferences and Expo in Dallas, the organization brings together environmental advocates, business leaders, policymakers, and researchers from around the world. Through large-scale events, and year-round programming, EarthX fosters collaboration and drives solutions across conservation, climate, energy, and policy.

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