My Inc. 5000 Conference & Gala Photo Diary

November 1, 2018

    This October, I attended the Inc. 5000 Conference & Gala for the first time. The event is a celebration of the nation’s fastest-growing companies. The three-day conference was packed with educational talks and panels aimed at helping entrepreneurs scale their companies and navigate common “growing pains.”

    For nearly five years, I have been a part of the Inc. magazine content strategy team. In this role, I create branded content for companies interested in reaching Inc’s audience of small- and mid-sized business owners. I have written dozens of articles, infographics, and video scripts for such businesses as Microsoft, MailChimp, The UPS Store, The Hartford, Las Vegas Convention Center, Chase Bank, Regions Bank, and many more.

    Each year, Inc. invites ranking entrepreneurs to invest in a Company Spotlight—a profile that highlights their company and shares their business success “secrets.” For the first time, I had the honor of writing these stories. I got to connect with 15 inspiring business owners. I was impressed by their passion, resilience, and jaw-dropping three-year revenue growth rates. These stories ran in a special Inc. 5000 yearbook that was distributed at the event and within Inc. magazine.

    The Inc. 5000 Yearbook
    Example of the company profiles written by Jacqueline Lisk

    I attended the event to cover panels hosted by our brand sponsors, Lenovo and Principal. In between my duties, I attended round tables and keynote speeches and networked with fellow entrepreneurs, including some of the people I had written about. I also got to meet some Inc. magazine and Fast Company colleagues I have worked with for years, but hadn’t yet seen in-person (#virtuallife).

    Meeting the team from VRG Components, an Inc. 5000-ranking company I had written about, in-person at the Gala

    The highlight was the gala. The energy was incredible. For many attendees, it was well-deseved acknowledgement of their achievements. My mouth hurt from smiling. My feet hurt from dancing. Small business owners are the backbone of the U.S. economy. I am so lucky to get to write about small business, and to have had a chance to celebrate the achievements of Inc. 5000 ranking companies.

    I didn’t have much time for photo-taking, but here is a few more:

    Gala host Joel McHale