Hailed as “the Steve Jobs of classical music” (Observer) and “the Sheryl Sandberg of the symphony” (LA Review of Books), Aubrey Bergauer is known for her results-driven, customer-centric, data-obsessed pursuit of changing the narrative for the performing arts. A “dynamic administrator” with an “unquenchable drive for canny innovation” (San Francisco Chronicle), she’s held offstage roles managing millions of dollars in revenue at major institutions including the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Opera, Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival, and San Francisco Conservatory of Music. As chief executive of the California Symphony, Bergauer propelled the organization to double the size of its audience and nearly quadruple the donor base.
Bergauer helps organizations and individuals transform from scarcity to opportunity, make money, and grow their base of fans and supporters. Her ability to cast and communicate vision moves large teams forward and brings stakeholders together, earning “a reputation for coming up with great ideas and then realizing them”(San Francisco Classical Voice).With a track record for strategically increasing revenue and relevance, leveraging digital content and technology, and prioritizing diversity and inclusion on stage and off, Bergauer sees a better way forward for classical music and knows how to achieve it.
Aubrey’s first book, Run It Like A Business, arrives in February 2024. A graduate of Rice University, her work and leadership have been covered in the Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, Thrive Global, and Southwest Airlines magazines, and she is a frequent speaker spanning TEDx, Adobe’s Magento, universities, and industry conferences in the U.S. and abroad.
www.aubreybergauer.com
@aubreybergauer (Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube)
Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of the book Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX. Eric has an astronomy degree from the University of Texas and a master’s in journalism from the University of Missouri. He previously worked at the Houston Chronicle for 17 years, where the paper was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2009 for his coverage of Hurricane Ike. A certified meteorologist, Eric founded Space City Weather and lives in Houston.
Bob Berman is one of the best known and most widely read astronomers in the world. He’s Astronomy magazine’s “Strange Universe” columnist as well as Discover Magazine’s astronomy columnist since 1989, and is responsible for the astronomy section of the Old Farmers Almanac. He is perhaps uniquely able to translate complex scientific concepts into language that is understandable to the casual observer yet meaningful to the most advanced.
Freelance columnist Amy Berner is obsessed with television. Although she spends much of her time as an event planner, she pops up in various places with reviews and essays, primarily covering genre television. She has appeared in several Smart Pop anthologies, including Five Seasons of Angel, The Anthology at the End of the Universe, Alias Assumed, Farscape Forever and Getting Lost. She lives in San Diego.
Abbie Bernstein: Writer G.O. Likeskill is a journalist currently taking a sabbatical at the world-famous Arkham Asylum. Visiting days are Tuesdays and Thursdays, which are connected by Wednesdays.
Daleen Berry is an enterprising writer whose national journalism career has seen her write about important social topics such as filicide-suicide, domestic violence murders, sexual crimes, and mental illness as a contributor to the Daily Beast, Huffington Post, and xoJane. Berry’s book, Sister of Silence, has received both critical and popular acclaim, while broadcast journalist and former NPR Morning Edition host Bob Edwards called Berry a “magnificent storyteller.” Berry has become a national speaker at conferences, colleges, and schools around the country. Most recently, she was invited to give a TEDx talk at Connecticut College. In 2011, she founded Samantha's Sanctuary, a 501(c)3 charity to help educate and empower abused women and children. Berry has received awards for investigative journalism and for her weekly columns. In 2012, Berry’s as-yet-unpublished book, Lethal Silence, took first place in the Pearl Buck Award in Writing for Social Change category, given jointly by West Virginia Writers and the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace Foundation.
Bruce Bethke was a regular contributor to Amazing Stories in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as to a wide variety of other magazines. A critically acclaimed and award-winning science fiction novelist, he takes strangely perverse pride in knowing that he once managed to convince the editor of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine that his unabashed swashbuckling pirate story was in fact a science fiction story. Bethke can be contacted through his Web site, www.BruceBethke.com.
Bruce and Karen Bethke live in beautiful, alligator-free Minnesota. He’s an award-winning science fiction writer; she’s a bookstore owner and thus far unpublished fantasy/paranormal romance writer. This essay is their first official collaboration that has not required braces or to be driven to the mall.
Bruce and Karen can be reached through www.brucebethke.com.
Jo Beverley is the bestselling author of 34 historical romance novels and 12 novellas, most set in and around the Regency period. She is a five-time winner of the RITA award, the top award in romance fiction, and a member of the RWA Hall of Fame for Regency romance. She is also on the RWA Honor Roll. To find out about all her work and her most recent publications, visit www.jobev.com/recent.html.
