stephanie kaufman / founder, managing director

While finishing school, Stephanie worked at the law firm Cooley Godward Kronish, San Diego as an attorney recruiter. In this role, she helped plan the summer associate events, through which she realized that her current path of going to law school was wrong…that she’d rather plan the events the lawyers attended!  She has been doing corporate event planning since then.

Stephanie’s thirteen years of event management experience includes a wide variety of gatherings, from board meetings in Fiji to city-wide conferences in Jackson, MS.  She’s had the privilege to work with everything from non-profits to start-ups to Fortune 50 companies.  She enjoys making each event special and ensuring each guest feels like a VIP.  Stephanie loves a challenge and thrives at finding unique solutions to make each program shine. She has planned domestic and international events for clients in the technology, arts, retail, pharmaceutical, agriculture, travel, non-profit, and hospitality industries.

Stephanie graduated from University of California, San Diego with a BA in Political Science and a concentration in International Studies. She resides in San Francisco with her husband, Alex, and their two dogs, Mowgli and Blue.

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Favorite Place to Travel: Africa

Favorite Method of Travel: Golf carts and helicopters are equally fun 

Favorite Cocktail: Pimm's Cup - my grandmother's favorite!

emmakylee rice / lead event planner

EmmaKylee is a lead planner for Looking Glass Creative. In this role, she supports and manages events from agenda development and registration to pre-planning logistics to onsite execution to post-event communications and budget reconciliation. She has been in the events industry for about eight years and earned her CMP degree in 2019. EmmaKylee currently resides in Tuscaloosa, AL. She is passionate about planning the best events for her clients, traveling the world, spending time with her husband and two cats and her alma mater’s football time (Roll Tide!).

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Favorite Place to Travel: Anguilla for beaches and Paris for culture

Favorite Method of Travel: Plane

Favorite Cocktail: Champagne – There’s always a reason to celebrate!

marie stevens / event operations

Marie is one of those people that loves details and processes.  Like…a lot.  Which has been the perfect foundation for her career as a corporate event planner.  With 16 years’ experience in the industry, she has learned that there is no limit to the vision that can go into the most unique events, and that there are endless opportunities for serving your client and audiences in a way that makes a strong impact and leaves a lasting positive brand image.  Her favorite part of this job is building project plans which map out the all pre- and post- planning requirements, and can be shared with teams for use as a platform to run efficient team planning meetings, and ensure that planning stays on track (and budget!) as the team works together toward execution.  In her spare time, Marie enjoys her job as a mommy just as much and loves spending her time with her husband and her two littles.  She loves teaching her family to live by two of her favorite sayings - “Create Your Own Happiness” and “Life is Good”.

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Favorite Place to Travel: Everywhere has its own experience to offer!

Favorite Method of Travel: By boat, but I also love a good road trip!

Favorite Cocktail: Vodka Tonic

lauren long / event operations

While finishing her business degree from the University of Georgia, Lauren began in the hospitality industry by working at a local catering and design company in Athens, GA. After finding that her passion lies on the corporate side of the events industry, she began her career with a Destination Management Company (DMC) in Atlanta working in Creative Services and planning events all over the Southeast from small mom and pop business to Fortune 100 companies. Over the past couple years, she has expanded her experience into meeting planning, partaking in both pre and post planning as well as on-site operational work as a travel director. Lauren resides in Metro Atlanta with her husband, daughter (Kate) and chocolate lab (Emma). 

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Favorite Place to Travel: Phuket & Maldives are on my bucket list

Favorite Method of Travel: Planes or Trains

Favorite Cocktail: An ice cold Stella or a bold Malbec

catharine lipton / event operations

Catharine has 15 years of experience in the event & meeting planning industry, dabbling in venue management and catering before landing in full service meeting and conference management. She has driven all stages of the event-life cycle from conceptual brainstorming and strategy to final budget reconciliation and ROI analysis. Catharine has built a strong, diverse portfolio including VIP client events, advisory boards, sales meetings, executive retreats, and large-scale technical conferences.

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Favorite Place to Travel: Anywhere with mountains.

Favorite Method of Travel: I love traveling by train

Favorite Cocktail: Paloma with jalapeno

thomas young / creative project manager

Thomas Young works as a freelance designer for content curation, graphic design, and website design. He has most recently worked with the National Consortium for Creative Placemaking as their Creative Director, where he primarily was responsible for the content for ten of the Creative Placemaking Leadership Summits and other educational programming. Over those two years, Thomas was able to create, maintain, expand, and edit the processes for curating and designing content. Ultimately, he helped to develop a strategy that both honors the collaborative spirit of creative placemaking and still provides a program that is well-designed. Thomas’s background is in landscape architecture, with a focus on ecological design and restoration ecology. His NJASLA award-winning masters thesis, “Isotopes in the Garden,” explored the relationship of the Atomic Age and its lasting legacy within the landscape. This story- and place-based approach to design folded into Thomas’s passion for theater and storytelling. When not working as a program curator, Thomas is the co-founder and Artistic Director of a non-profit Theater Company, ReThink Theatrical, which provides free and accessible storytelling to local communities. 

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Favorite Place to Travel: Bath, UK

Favorite Method of Travel: Roadtrip!

Favorite Cocktail: Dirty martini

christine schneider / senior event coordinator

Christine graduated from Loyola Marymount University in 2011 with a degree in Communication Studies and an emphasis in Public Relations. After graduation, she moved back to the Bay Area to work in the construction industry as an assistant project manager where she helped organize, coordinate, and execute upon many large commercial construction projects. In addition, Christine has helped with managing client relationships and marketing for events in the wine industry, such as weddings, dinners and private parties. Christine is a results driven, motivated worker who strives for excellence in all aspects of her work. She is very excited to be a part of Looking Glass Creative and enjoys every challenge thrown her way.

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Favorite Place to Travel: Mexico

Favorite Method of Travel: By car

Favorite Cocktail: A good ol' margarita

cholai witter / head of accounting

Cholai's career history for the past twenty plus years in the Bay Area spans medical, corporate, financial and public accounting.  

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Favorite Place to Travel: Europe and secluded tropical islands with natural landmarks

Favorite Method of Travel: By train and cruise in Europe

Favorite Drink: Simple tea and coffee!

mowgli & baloo kaufman / assistants

Mowgli and Baloo Kaufman are integral to the structure of this organization. With almost no background in event planning, they still manage to attend all meetings and keep up with their busy calendars.  They are skilled in cuddling and sloppy kissing. Their achievements include digging in places they shouldn’t, hunting bugs in the sunshine, and sleeping a lot on the job.

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Favorite Place to Travel: Golden Gate Park

Favorite Method of Travel: Running

Favorite Cocktail: Toilet bowl cocktail