New consultancy Tenve targets strategic growth for event brands

Event industry marketing leader Alex Softley has announced the creation of Tenve, a founder-led strategic consultancy designed to help event businesses translate marketing activity into measurable commercial growth.

Tenve will focus on providing senior-level strategic support to organisers, event brands and suppliers seeking to refine their marketing direction, prioritise investment and build more sustainable revenue pipelines. The consultancy is scheduled to begin operations in late summer.

Background and industry context

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Event businesses are emerging from several years of rapid transformation, driven by changing attendee expectations, digital innovation and the shift toward data-led decision-making. Many organisers and suppliers now operate across a complex mix of in-person, digital and hybrid formats, with marketing teams tasked with building year-round engagement rather than simply promoting single shows or campaigns.

At the same time, rising customer acquisition costs, shorter planning cycles and increased competition for audience attention are placing pressure on marketing functions to demonstrate clear return on investment. Senior marketing expertise is often spread thin across portfolios or markets, and many event organisations are re-evaluating how they structure their strategy, brand positioning and go-to-market plans.

In this environment, founder-led consultancies and fractional CMO models are gaining traction, providing on-demand senior guidance without the overhead of full-time executive hires. Tenve’s launch reflects this broader shift toward more flexible strategic support within the events sector.

Key developments and announcement

Softley, a CMO with extensive experience across the events landscape, has positioned Tenve as a partner for event organisers, media owners and event technology providers seeking clearer strategic direction and stronger commercial outcomes from their marketing efforts.

The consultancy’s core remit is to help event businesses:

Clarify overall marketing strategy and value proposition
Define and prioritise target audiences, segments and markets
Align marketing plans with revenue goals and commercial objectives
Improve the effectiveness of channel mix and campaign planning
Strengthen internal marketing capabilities and decision-making frameworks

Tenve will work with organisations of varying sizes, from established exhibition portfolios and conference brands to smaller, high-growth events and service providers. The consultancy is designed to sit alongside existing teams, offering senior-level perspective, challenge and structure rather than replacing in-house functions.

The launch timeline for late summer gives Tenve an entry point ahead of the autumn event season in key markets, when many organisers finalise marketing plans, reforecast performance and prepare for the following year’s show cycle.

Industry impact

While individual consulting firms may not transform the market overnight, Tenve’s launch underlines a direction of travel within the events sector: marketing is increasingly recognised as a strategic growth lever rather than a purely tactical or operational function.

For organisers, this may accelerate trends such as:

Greater emphasis on audience intelligence and data-driven decision-making
More disciplined portfolio positioning and differentiation in crowded verticals
Tighter integration of sales, marketing and product teams around shared targets
Structured experimentation in digital channels, content formats and revenue models

For suppliers and technology providers serving events, the presence of specialist marketing consultancies can raise expectations around performance, campaign measurability and alignment with organiser objectives. Vendors that understand these pressures and align their solutions to strategic marketing outcomes will be better positioned to win and retain clients.

The move also highlights growing demand for specialised sector knowledge. Generalist marketing agencies often lack familiarity with event sales cycles, exhibitor expectations, delegate acquisition dynamics and the nuances of hybrid and digital event models. Tenve’s sector-specific focus aims to address this gap.

Why this matters for event professionals and technology providers

For event professionals, particularly those in leadership, commercial and marketing roles, Tenve’s arrival reinforces several key themes that are likely to shape strategic planning over the next few years:

Strategic clarity over activity volume: Organisers are reassessing whether their marketing output is clearly tied to audience and revenue metrics. External strategic support can help expose duplication, clarify positioning and reframe priorities.
Data-informed, not data-overloaded: Many event businesses now have access to more attendee, exhibitor and behavioural data than ever, but lack frameworks to convert it into insight-led marketing decisions. A structured approach to segmentation and measurement is becoming a competitive differentiator.
Bridging physical and digital: As events blend physical experiences with digital content and year-round communities, marketers must orchestrate multi-touch journeys. Strategic guidance can help determine which channels to emphasise, how to nurture leads between editions and how to monetise engagement beyond show days.
Skills and resourcing: In-house teams often juggle campaign execution, content production, partner management and analytics. Access to senior-level direction, on a project or retained basis, can support internal teams without requiring permanent C-suite hires.

For event technology companies, a more strategically focused marketing environment among organisers will influence how platforms are evaluated and deployed. Solutions that clearly support segmentation, campaign optimisation, first-party data strategies, personalisation and ROI reporting will resonate more strongly with decision-makers looking to connect marketing activity to commercial performance.

Technology providers may also find opportunities to collaborate with consultancies like Tenve on joint projects, where strategic planning and technology implementation are combined to deliver measurable attendee, exhibitor and sponsor outcomes.

Conclusion

The launch of Tenve adds another specialised player to the growing ecosystem of senior marketing advisory services in the event industry. With a founder grounded in CMO-level experience, the consultancy aims to support organisers and suppliers that are seeking sharper strategy, clearer priorities and stronger commercial returns from their marketing investment.

As the sector continues to navigate economic pressure, changing audience behaviours and ongoing digital transformation, the ability to connect marketing decisions directly to business growth will remain central. Tenve’s entrance into the market signals that demand for dedicated, event-focused strategic marketing expertise is unlikely to slow, and may increasingly shape how event portfolios and technologies are planned, promoted and monetised in the years ahead.