[Ipg-smz] Fwd: Churchill Club ceases operations

[Evan Schuman]

Shades of CMP past, David. Did you mean to say Tony Perkins and not Tony Uphoff? 

 

_______

Evan Schuman

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Computerworld weekly columnist (Column archive: http://www.thecontentfirm.com/weekly-column-on-computerworld)

Moderator for MIT Sloan Management Review events

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Member, Internet Press Guild:  <http://netpress.org/> http://netpress.org/

 

From: Ipg-smz <ipg-smz-bounces at netpress.org> On Behalf Of David Needle via Ipg-smz
Sent: Friday, March 20, 2020 6:20 PM
To: IPG List <ipg-smz at netpress.org>
Cc: David Needle <davidneedle at gmail.com>
Subject: [Ipg-smz] Fwd: Churchill Club ceases operations

 


>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  <mailto:info at churchillclublegacy.org> 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  <http://www.youtube.com/churchillclub> www.youtube.com/churchillclub.

 

Churchill Club, RIP.

 

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