For 10 years, EM has been championing b-to-b all-stars, delving into their career journeys, portfolios, best practices and industry forecasts. Meet this year’s crew: The 2026 B-to-B Dream Team.
Shawn Wagner, VP-Global Events, HPE
The pathway to the event industry is rarely linear. Just ask Air Force veteran Shawn Wagner, who made a transition from the military directly into marketing.
It may sound like a big leap, but Wagner’s skills in communication, ops and logistics, and comfortability in high-pressure scenarios, transferred seamlessly into a new career path. Fast-forward to today, and she’s leading global events at HPE.
Wagner took her first marketing position at Compact Computers, which was ultimately acquired by HPE. After working with the sales team on global solutions, she was offered a role on a new integrated marketing and events team, and promptly recognized that the event industry was exactly where she was meant to be. As she puts it, “You have to have a unique personality when you’re in event management.”
After HPE, Wagner worked on the agency side for roughly five years, then moved on to AWS to help the brand manage its massive re:Invent conference. Eventually, HPE reached back out to offer her a role building, and leading, the company’s internal global events team… and the rest is history. She currently serves as the team’s vice president. Talk about coming full circle.
HPE’s marketing department is undergoing a reorg, but currently, Wagner manages around 15 annual events, handling operations, strategy, contract and budget management, executive engagement and measurement, among duties. And the events run the gamut, including tier-one shows, like Mobile World Congress, as well as sales kickoffs, a roadshow, internal leadership meetings, partner advisory boards, the President’s Club and the brand’s marquee conference, HPE Discover, which takes place in the U.S. in June and in EMEA in December.
For Wagner, a key accomplishment has been driving consistency and standardization across HPE’s multifaceted events with the advent of an Event Collaboration Forum “so that all our stakeholders know what to expect from my team,” she says. It also serves as an internal support group of sorts.
“Because HPE is such a complex organization with different business units and different regions and geos that are running different events, I felt like it was so important to have a community that people could come to and say, ‘How did you address this challenge?’ Or, ‘Let me tell you what we did at this event last month, and I’ll share the results…’ We do these every other week, and it’s become a great best practice and community-builder for other folks in the organization.”
When it comes to attendee engagement, Wagner and her team embrace, and respond to, feedback. Case in point: At HPE Discover two years ago, the brand aimed to cater to top-level professionals with its Executive Summit for roughly 250 people whose titles ranged from chief experience officer to IT manager. Post-event, the attendee consensus was that the summit was too big, and that the echelon of those in attendance wasn’t up to par.
In response, Wagner reduced the event to 65 high-level executives who were selected through a nomination process. The intimate one-day program, renamed C-Circle, featured insights from thought-leadership luminaries, opportunities to engage with senior HPE leadership, and dedicated time for peer-to-peer problem-solving and networking.
“A lot of programs will take executives golfing, but it was our feeling that if an attendee is going and doing those things, it’s probably not the right level,” Wagner explains. “Because we want to make sure we’re having that dialogue with them, understanding what’s top of mind and having them exposed to our senior executives who are driving the business and the strategy. We got such great feedback that they were having impactful conversations, and really understanding where we’re going. So that’s something that we will continue moving forward.”
Keeping audiences on their toes, particularly when it comes to HPE Discover, is also a priority. Even after the brand’s groundbreaking keynote at Sphere Las Vegas in 2024, Wagner didn’t rest on her laurels. For her, it’s always about delivering a fresh and purposeful attendee experience, and that means the strategy must constantly evolve.
“It’s: How do you get creative but also do some financial engineering?” she says. “So we’re always pushing the boundaries of what we can do for our attendees, and we don’t ever want them to feel like it’s the same program it was last year. We’re always looking at those [opportunities], whether it’s through brand, creative and digital signage, or through various activations we have through our sponsorships.”
And while Wagner is embracing everyone’s favorite new toy—AI—and its ability to driver greater business efficiencies and unique customer interactions, she also sees it as a catalyst for more in-person experiences. You might call it job security.
“Given the fast pace of AI and what it’s doing right now, it leaves us a little skeptical of what we’re seeing online, and [thinking] is that really a person talking to me, or has AI manipulated that product or that placement?” she says. “So with that skepticism, I believe people are going to want to go to in-person events. They’re going to want to touch and feel and look someone in the eyes when they’re talking to them and know that they’re having that real, human experience.”
Photos: Courtesy of HPE
