[Ipg-smz] Fwd: Churchill Club ceases operations

[David Needle]

>From the sad but inevitable file - the Churchill Club was a Silicon Valley
institution founded by Rich Karlgaard (currently publisher of Forbes) and
Tony Uphoff (the founder of Upside magazine) 35 years ago (press release
below).
Pretty much all the big names in tech have spoken at Churchill Club events
at one time or another, but it's a brutal time to be in the live meeting
event business and without sponsors it was impossible to keep it going -
even with the help of many volunteers.

Will be missed.
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Karen Tucker

Dear David,



This is a courtesy advance notice to you as a supporter and friend of the
Churchill Club. After an amazing 35-year run, we are sad to report that
Churchill Club is disbanding. An announcement is going out to our mailing
list and a press release will be issued shortly this afternoon (see release
at the bottom of this message).



Over the course of the past year, as you may be aware, we explored changes
to our business model, including promising and exciting potential
partnerships. But recently we experienced escalated numbers of reschedules
and cancellations as well as difficulty in securing enough sponsorship to
support our programming in the near term. As the coronavirus COVID-19
global pandemic escalated, our options for continuing as a self-standing
organization diminished rapidly in the face of daunting social and economic
constraints.



We are still in talks to provide a home (and endowment) for the Churchill
Club archive of content.



Any Churchill business-related inquiries may be sent to
info at churchillclublegacy.org after today.



Thank you for all you contributed, David.  It was a great run.



Onward,

Karen



Karen Tucker

CEO

Churchill Club





*AFTER STORIED 35-YEAR-RUN, SILICON VALLEY’S CHURCHILL CLUB CEASES
OPERATIONS*



*SAN JOSE – March 20, 2020* — Churchill Club CEO Karen Tucker today
announced the long-running Silicon Valley thought leadership forum will
cease operations. “After an amazing 35-year run, I am sad to report that
Churchill Club must disband, Tucker said. “The proliferation of technology
and business-related events and speaker forums—in both the digital and real
worlds—has been making it increasingly difficult for small non-profit
organizations such as ours to compete and thrive.”



“We were exploring changes to our business model and potential new
directions and partnerships when a dip in short-term corporate sponsorship
occurred early this year. The impact of reduced financial support has now
been compounded by the global coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, forcing us to
make this unfortunate and difficult decision,” Tucker concluded.



*Complimentary Membership Offers to CHM*

Working closely with the Computer History Museum, Churchill Club has
arranged for all current members to be offered complimentary memberships to
CHM. Members will be contacted individually to take advantage of the offer.



*Churchill Club – A Storied History*

Churchill Club has been the premier independent thought leadership forum in
Silicon Valley since 1985, pursuing a mission to strengthen innovation,
economic growth and social good. The first meeting of Churchill Club was
November 12, 1985, featuring Robert Noyce, integrated circuit pioneer and
founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel. Churchill Club was founded by
Rich Karlgaard, now publisher of *Forbes* magazine, and Tony Perkins,
former editor-in-chief of *Upside Magazine* and *AlwaysOn*. They and a
group of friends created an organization dedicated to producing programs
where “important people say important things” – dubbing the club after the
great orator, Winston Churchill.



Thereafter, the Churchill Club stage brought tech industry giants, legends,
rock stars and other critical thinkers together in iconic conversations to
examine the implications of “what’s new, next, and not widely known,”
unfolding trends and future opportunities. Speakers have included IBM CEO
Ginni Rometty; Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, current CEO Satya Nadella,
and former CEO Steve Ballmer; Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry
Page, and former chairman Eric Schmidt; Oracle founder Larry Ellison;
Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings; SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk;
LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner; Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg; Intel co-founder, the
late Andy Grove and former Intuit chairman, the late Bill Campbell. Among
prominent investors who have graced the stage were Vinod Khosla, Peter
Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, Ron Conway, Mary Meeker and Roger
McNamee. The Churchill Club stage also hosted a diverse collection of
luminaries from outside of tech who have had impact for societal good,
including the filmmaker James Cameron, actor James Caan, best-selling
author Michael Lewis, Hollywood talent über-agent Ari Emanuel, government
leaders such as former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and
philanthropist and author Chelsea Clinton.



Live events were the Churchill Club’s bread and butter. Its annual VC Top
10 Tech Trends and the Churchills awards programs were coveted tickets, as
was its long-running holiday Gadgets program, which was co-hosted by the
renowned journalists Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. A hallmark of the club
was its education, professional development and networking opportunities
that were core to the promise of the organization. Its discussions
attracted audiences of senior executives in a variety of strategic roles,
investors, start-up entrepreneurs, policymakers, academics, non-profit
leaders and influential journalists—because Churchill Club curated its
audience to get the right people in the room, the people who played
integral roles within the ecosystem to make change happen.



The club was exemplified by its logo—the bowler, also known as the derby,
which became a symbol of class equality throughout the 19th and 20th
centuries. The bowler leveled the visual playing field, encouraging more
openness toward others and their ideas, which is exactly what the club
strived to do for the past three-plus decades.



“We sincerely thank our staff, volunteers, members and sponsors for their
support over the years,” Tucker concluded.



Those interested can relive some of the greatest moments at the Churchill
Club on YouTube at www.youtube.com/churchillclub.



Churchill Club, RIP.



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