Cara Paulan has spent almost 15 years building the operating systems behind speaker and training businesses, including serving as COO and CMO for founder-led companies led by speakers recognized among the National Speakers Association’s Million Dollar Speakers Group. She built and managed sales, customer success, and marketing functions from the ground up for businesses built around a single expert’s name and reputation.

She started her career at The Harry Walker Agency, where she was introduced to the professional speaking industry. She then spent six years building speaker operations and producing content for a large membership organization, including its flagship conference that brought over 800 speakers and more than 20,000 attendees to Washington, DC each year.

Cara brings a unique combination of experience to Backstage Ops. She has been a buyer of keynote speakers, a seller of keynote and training services, and the operator running day-to-day operations for global speaking and training companies.