Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Erika Kulovitz. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Erika thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

Our mission is truly about serving people first for genuine connection and long lasting effect. This came from a place of knowing our purpose as a company, how we can impact those who work with us on our team, to our event guests and beyond. When I started the company I knew I wanted it to be unique and shaped from the good experiences I had with previous leaders and take the lessons learned from past disappointments and traumas. Unfortunately, we’ve all had a negative work experience that may have lead to a small, big, or traumatic impact on our lives. Hopefully we’ve risen above, forgave and grew from those experiences. When I officially launched the akire brand, I knew we wanted more positive interactions. More for our team members, more for the lives we touch and spend time with every day to the lives of those we get to impact with event experiences. Perfection is a myth, and we are all human, but we strive to have this impact on our team members, clients and the world around us, leaving it better than we found it.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Growing up I loved design! I fondly remember spending hours with my grandfather at his drawing desk sketching while he was working on blue prints. We’d spend time in his shop creating and building, too bad some of those power tool skills didn’t stay with me! He taught me the ability to dream, design and create. He was all about the experience, teaching, getting out in nature for inspiration, taking time for details and was passionate. All the things I’ve held onto as with my journey into event design, experience, and leadership.

A fun fact about me is I danced for 23 years, which brought me an appreciation for the arts, stage presence, choreography, theater, drama, and most of all emotion. It continues to guide me, inspire and motivate me to bring this experience to each event.

Over the last 20 years I’ve had the opportunity to develop my career in events and marketing. It started off with working at an invitation store, developing design and product purchasing. Then to post college taking steps into conference planning and digital marketing, then onto event design and production. I’ve assisted in scenic set design & creation, creative multimedia concepts, budget and venue negotiations, technical production, tabletop design and entertainment management.

Throughout the years I’ve produce a wide variety of corporate conferences (intimate to large scale),non- profit galas and experiential events. Originally from the Chicago, but also hold a special place for Los Angeles as I transported myself across the country to spread my wings to produce events throughout the USA and internationally.

Everywhere I go and every interaction I have to connect I bring my passion, creativity, design expertise and knowledge to share with my team and our clients.

All of this birthed akire productions, were we focus on serving people first and creating long last effect and impact. From venue selection and negotiation, to design, branding, guest experience, storytelling and more.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

It’s been a journey in leadership to learn different ways to manage teams and keeping their engagement & morale. Over the years I’ve managed several teams, a lot of which was lead from the internal cultures of those companies. I knew when I started akire that we wanted to do it differently. All of our team, whether full time or contract, have given the feedback how much they enjoy the culture that we’ve built. It’s based on “come as you are”. That sounds simple, but it’s not. We are here to be human beings first, serving each other and through that serving our clients and our guests. Some days, life is just messy. But on those days, tough days, we support and encourage each other. We encourage team members to share where they are, good or bad, not forcing just knowing they are in a safe environment if they want to share. As the manager/leader, my automatic response to anything is, no problem or yes, and… how can I help? or what can I do to help? Many times it’s just a listening ear. Other times its breaking down an obstacle together in life or work. Fostering that environment has been successful for us and the team is loyal, communicative and making sure we are hitting major milestones with our clients, making managing them almost too easy.

One other aspect that keeps morale high is that we offer a Corporate Chaplain service to all of our team and extension of our team. It’s an opportunity to talk to someone that isn’t HR, that is there to be a friend, guide spiritually if that is what they need and want, but it’s not a forced conversation. We get weekly encouragements by email and often brings up good conversations within the team.

Have you ever had to pivot?

A lot of people had to make a big “pivot” in the covid era, but for akire our pivot was massive growth. We grew so quick, it was too quickly. So the pivot we had to make, was to slow down, reset and reorganize. Another business owner and friend suggested I read “Get a Grip” and “Traction”, it literally changed our outlook and future of our company. We realized we loved all our team members but some where not in the right seat in our accountability chart. Our executive team knowing the vision, mission and goals better and getting the team on board was the biggest part of that pivot. Some decided that this was no longer a place that fit for them, and that’s ok! We all grow differently, but the foundation of the company, mission and values was what we need most and helped us thrive to were we are today and going.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.akireproductions.com
• Instagram: @akire_productions
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erikalohmarkulovitz