MEET
CARRIE
Davenport
.png)
Carrie (Abernathy) Davenport CMP-Fellow, CEM, CSEP is a 20-year veteran of the global meetings & events industry as a multi-award-winning meeting planner. She's also known for her work as a podcast host, leadership coach and keynote speaker on women's empowerment.
How it Started...
Over the last 20 years, Carrie (Abernathy) Davenport (CMP-Fellow, CEM, CSEP) has sat on dozens of event industry boards and advisory committees, steering and guiding best practices for the hospitality world. She's been recognized as Successful Magazine’s “Top Industry Influencers” and a Meetings Trendsetter by Meetings Today Magazine. More recently, Carrie was inducted into the Smart Meetings Magazine’s Women in Events Hall of Fame.
Carrie co-founded the Association for Women in Events in 2015 and hosted a successful podcast on Apple, Like an #EventBoss in 2021. From 2021-2022 she also co-hosted “Events from Black to White” – a monthly live virtual DEI discussion with events colleague Derrick Johnson.
Her other pursuits include acting as CEO for the e-commerce store Pickleball-Express.com and working to launch her *new* lifestyle brand Face It till You Make It!
How it's going...
.png)
Outside of work, Carrie sits on several advisory boards to include Virginia Tech’s Hospitality and Tourism Management board and the Events Industry Council’s Equity Task Force. Carrie was inducted into the Smart Women in Meetings Hall of Fame in 2019. She was named an industry Changemaker of the year in 2019 and 2021 by MeetingsNet Magazine. EventEx also named her Top 100 Most Influential People in the Events Industry for 2022.
Carrie lives just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina with her husband Ben, their doggie Birdie and is working on her first book, “Face It till You Make It”! In her spare time, she loves to golf, boat (she is a certified Captain!), be around positive energy, and her karaoke go-to song is Four Non Blonds, What’s Up?
