Cindy Lo, Owner: Red Velvet Events
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Cindy Lo has created a non-traditional career path for herself. Originally majoring in the Professional Program in Accounting (PPA) at The University of Texas at Austin, she quickly realized accounting was not her calling. Cindy changed her major to Management Information Systems (MIS), where she enjoyed the challenge of learning project management skills.
Upon graduating in Business Honors and MIS, Cindy went to work for Trilogy, a local Austin software company. Trilogy’s culture was very much a work hard, play hard environment. As a new graduate trying to prove her fit on the food chain, Cindy worked much harder than she played. The first year at Trilogy, she served in a technical sales position. Setting up demos for prospective clients and helping recruit the next set of college kids were her main duties. After a year of sales, Cindy moved into a technical consulting role, which meant 99% travel. The role helped Cindy grow her technical and customer skill sets, but being away from her dog and new Austin home was draining. After accruing over 800,000 airline miles in less than five years, Cindy decided to make a change in her life and requested an extended leave of absence from Trilogy.
While working at Trilogy and attending UT, Cindy had always been a planner. Whether for a social gathering or a freshmen orientation, Cindy enjoyed running the show and making sure all the logistics fell into place for a hassle-free event. So while enjoying her leave of absence, Cindy played with the idea of starting her own event planning business. For a few months, Cindy took the conservative route of looking for a job in the field to gain some more experience. In a down-turning economy and with no formal background in event planning, Cindy found it difficult to find a larger company to hire her. With the encouragement and support from her friends and then boyfriend (now husband), Cindy left Trilogy and started her own business. With a few events already lined up while she was writing her business plan, Cindy used that capital plus savings to start Red Velvet Events, Inc.
Red Velvet Events has been growing ever since. Cindy quickly found that budgeting monthly expenses is critical, as a slow month of business will cost an independent dearly. For those interested in going the entrepreneurial route, she recommends the following: (1) write a business plan and re-evaluate it every 3-6 months, (2) lean on your friends and family for emotional support, and (3) network with other entrepreneurs—understand that you are not alone out there. Her current role is focused more on general business and project management, but she does not want people to think that she does not use her MIS skills. The event planning industry has been slow to adopt technology, and because of this, she helps troubleshoots colleagues’ technical problems and serves on the technical committees for the event professional organizations.
Cindy credits some of her project management expertise to Eleanor Jordan’s Business Systems Development class, MIS 374, where she and her team interacted with an actual client to help solve a real-world IT problem. She enjoyed her role as project manager for that class project and for the first time, felt prepared to go out into the working world. Cindy’s biggest challenge since then was deciding to leave a steady job (i.e., steady paycheck) and go out on her own. Thanks to the support from her family and boyfriend (now husband), she is glad she took the risk and feels that she learned more than any text book could have taught about running her own business.
When she is not planning events for clients, Cindy remains active with the MIS Steering Committee, Meeting Professionals International Texas Hill Country Chapter, International Special Events Society Austin Chapter, Austin Asian American Chamber of Commerce, Junior Achievement, and Make-a-Wish Foundation.
