Our Team
Karrie Goldberg
Founder & CEO
Karrie Goldberg is the brainchild behind The Kagency, a one-stop shop for event planners and marketers, representing over 300 one-of-a-kind venues in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Miami. Venues range from notable nightclubs to galleries, private residences to photography studios, and both raw and outdoor spaces. Founded in 2004, Karrie and her team use their hospitality, experiential marketing and branding backgrounds, as well as industry-wide contacts, to represent and market these venues, generating business from private dinners to large-scale product launches and everything in between.
The Kagency carved out its niche in location representation with a laser focus on client satisfaction and customer service. From there, the portfolio grew quickly and organically. In addition to offering venue clients seamless booking solutions, The Kagency also consults on venue build-outs, sales and marketing strategies, internal systems development, event-related media buying, and other tangible revenue-generating activities.
The Kagency is in the sole position to uniquely assist brands with brand building by supplying producers with a wide array of environments to reflect their vision. The client list ranges from corporate leaders like American Express, Microsoft and Conde Nast Publications to fashion-forward brands like Nike, Diesel, Sephora, Calvin Klein, Maserati, and creative powerhouses like Ogilvy and Young & Rubicam.
In 2008, Karrie expanded the company’s portfolio by founding a talent booking division, representing top-tier DJ talent like supermodel Eve Salvail, Cielo-owner and resident DJ Nicolas Matar, Duran Duran drummer Roger Taylor, Glen Matlock of the Sex Pistols, and more. The company’s well-established network led to international bookings, from Abu Dhabi to Brazil, from Ibiza to Japan, and even White House Congressional dinners.
Karrie is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with a degree in accounting and a minor in Japanese. While her charitable activities are numerous through the company, her personal time is spent with The Breast Treatment Task Force (BTTF), a New York-based non-profit that facilitates free breast cancer screenings and treatment for patients without insurance.
Dana Bartle
President
Dana Bartle is a unique triple threat when it comes to the world of entertainment. With over fifteen years’ experience in event management, brand partnerships, and hospitality, Bartle has the reigns of The Kagency as President. Bartle’s breadth of expertise is as unique, unorthodox and multi-faceted as the company’s locations and talent.
Bartle began her career in 2002 at New York’s venerable Il Buco restaurant group, starting as a bartender and eventual event manager. Il Buco also put Bartle through sommelier training, and she became the restaurant’s first and still-only female sommelier. Juggling disparate roles – bartender, sommelier, event manager – Bartle came to understand the storytelling elements that bind any great event or undertaking. In her seven years with the restaurant group, she built the company’s events business from the occasional to-do – a wedding here, a chef’s table there – to a formidable enterprise that ran the gamut from wine tastings to buyouts to celebrity and A-list events. During this time, Bartle also received a scholarship to The New School’s Documentary Media Studies program, throwing her into a course of hands-on film study before she’d so much as picked up a camera.
In 2006, Bartle dove into filmmaking while juggling a Friday-to-Monday schedule at the restaurant. She also produced fundraisers for her filmmaker peers, gathering auction items, finding DJs, sourcing vendors and securing the right rooms. Bartle went on to start her own production company, a move that took her everywhere from Detroit, where she worked with the J Dilla Foundation and the formidable Ma Dukes, to multiple locations in Brazil for a band’s six-week tour documentary.
In December of 2010, Bartle made the move to Brooklyn Bowl, and it was her breadth of knowledge – film, wine, music, hospitality and business-building – that made her the right match for the venue. Driven to pair venue’s strengths and uniqueness to the array of potential clients New York has to offer, Bartle increased the venue’s now multi-million-dollar event receipts by over 600%, bringing in dozens corporate and social events. Bartle ran city events for the Bloomberg Foundation, President Obama’s only Brooklyn fundraiser, VH1’s Live Super Bowl broadcast and even built-out of a full-sized boxing ring in the middle of the venue. We aren’t allowed to detail juggling the 3 secret service units…but that happened too.
Sean Oakley
Director of Operations
Sean Oakley began his events career back to his high school years, working to coordinate and market concerts and small events in NYC’s Union Square Park. It was this part-time starting point that ignited his true passion for events, both large and small. He would continue to work at the Greenwich Village-Chelsea Chamber of Commerce, organizing large scale networking events, conferences and galas. It was there he had his biggest claim to fame – becoming the sole coordinator of NYC’s first ever LGBTQ career fair, featuring over 38 brand sponsors (and required many long days and nights).
Eventually, Sean was introduced to the world of experiential marketing. Beginning in sales, he quickly realized he preferred an operations standpoint, and began coordinating nationwide and international events.
From breaking a Guinness World Record over most synchronized mouthwash swishes in Times Square, to organizing synchronized dance mobs promoting fashion brands, or executing guerilla stunts breaking news headlines everywhere, it is clear Sean is never afraid of a challenge.
Mandy Corral-Webb
Senior Sales and Operations Manager
After previously working with The Kagency on the venues’ side, Mandy decided to expand her raw event space knowledge and joined our team in 2022 as Senior Operations Manager.
Mandy oversees the multitude of spaces we work with, ensuring events run seamlessly from beginning to end. Ranging from nightlife, restaurant and raw spaces, she has 10 years experience with events from all angles.
Coming to us from London, Mandy graduated with a music and arts degree. In her spare time, she listens to records and hangs out with her dogs!
Amanda McMurray
Marketing & Account Manager
Amanda joined The Kagency in 2021 as Client Coordinator. As Client Coordinator, Amanda is the first point of contact clients have with the agency and is responsible for gathering all client details to present venue selections from our roster. Amanda also fields many venue-specific questions and provides floor plans and other support materials for the sales team while they are on-site with clients.
A graduate from Johnson & Wales University, Amanda majored in Sports, Entertainment & Event Management. Prior to The Kagency, Amanda spent two years at MKTG working as a Production Coordinator for large-scale experiential activations. In her spare time Amanda loves to travel and play with her puppy.
Natalie Vestergom
Client Coordinator
Natalie joined The Kagency team in November 2022 as Client Coordinator, and is the first point of contact for clients beginning their venue search. She is responsible for selecting and presenting options from our roster based on the client’s needs, while also helping to facilitate and provide site visits, event scheduling, and any other support materials our sales managers may need.
Recently graduate from the University of Miami as a public relations and music business major, Natalie has always had an interest in events and media planning. Having lived in a number of major cities over the past few years has given her a sense of familiarity with this vast and exciting world!
Outside of The Kagency, she is busy traveling the world as a professional and competitive Irish dancer.
Zhenia Gorod
Director of Accounts
As Director of Accounts at the Kagency, Zhenia is always scouting new spaces and matching them up with the right project. Her role is to find clients their ideal venue and to see through that their event is executed flawlessly. Zhenia has expansive professional experience.
Prior to the Kagency, she was a project manager for a nightlife hospitality group, served as a paralegal for a law firm and was an account manager at a financial brokerage. Her educational background is a BA in Studio Art and Art History.