Blaise Cashen '81 is the Senior Vice President of Corporate Events at NBCUniversal. She leads a team of 15 people who plan and execute events for Comcast NBCUniversal, such as the Olympics, Super Bowl, Ryder Cup, BravoCon, Telemundo Latin Billboards, political debates, Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary Celebration, meetings, lunches, dinners, etc.
"I am a hands-off leader who likes to empower my team to make their own decisions and develop their own style. I am always there for them when they need me and am focused on making sure they have a work-life balance since the job is so demanding and takes up a lot of their time."
Blaise started her career as an assistant at Sports Illustrated and worked her way up to Director of Event Marketing before NBCU approached her in 2003 to lead their events team. Throughout her professional life, she has learned several pertinent skills:
- Excellent communication & organizational
- Negotiating
- Budgeting
- Resourceful & Creative
- Always on top of current trends, restaurants, etc.
- Ability to work with different personalities
- Always have a backup plan and be ready to pivot on a dime
- Calm under pressure
- Team Player
Being a team player and having confidence are two things Blaise says she learned at Maryvale. "I loved my time at Maryvale. It was a very nurturing environment, and being in a small class was perfect for me. I felt like I always got the attention I needed and was never afraid to ask for help."
Her advice to current Maryvale students is to do as many internships as you can! "It’s hard to know what you want until you are in the environment and see exactly what is entailed."
