Alumni
Grad Is National Sales Manager of Leading Event Planning Company
Merchandise Product Development graduate Yvette Corradini-Bratt is the National Sales Manager for Elite Productions International (EPI), a leading luxury event design, planning, and management company that's based in Southern California. We recently caught up with Yvette to learn more.
What are your responsibilities at Elite Productions International? My job is to seek out companies who outsource for conferences, galas, fundraisers, and fashion shows (of course, my favorite). I also get to meet with local venues that have the capacity and ability to meet our clients' needs for their events. We work with those venues as a vendor for their needs such as florals, experiential design, staging, and more.
How would you describe a typical day? I spend my days meeting and speaking with clients discussing their annual event needs. A lot of what I do feels very investigative for lack of a better word. I am constantly researching local venues, conferences, social galas, and such, and spend a lot of my day on LinkedIn. If I am not at my desk making calls and arranging meetings, I am out in the field meeting with clients face-to-face to build a true partnership and relationship.
What are your favorite things about this career? I wake up incredibly excited about what I do every day. I get to meet amazing people and see places I didn’t know existed in “our backyard.” I think the best part of my career is that I have a sense of accomplishment in saying that I have helped clients' visions come to life. Also, having spent much of my career as a manager, I have been able to watch employees grow and achieve their own success. There is nothing more fulfilling than that.
How did FIDM help prepare you for your career? In a recent conversation with my FIDM Career Advisor, I explained to her that when I was attending FIDM I found myself wondering why I was taking certain courses. “Sewing? What? Why? I don’t want to be a Designer.” Day one of my career, and every day since then, I recognized why. Every single course I took, every book I read, and every experience I had with FIDM has been a part of my day-to-day in some capacity along the way in my career. I attribute much of my success to the experience and education I received at FIDM.
What were you up to prior to joining EPI? Immediately after graduating I was fortunate to obtain the exact position I wanted within the fashion industry as a Product Development Coordinator for Antik Denim. My role there catapulted me into an even bigger opportunity just a couple years later, at Joe's Jeans, where I grew tremendously in my career and was promoted multiple times until finding my seat as their Director of Product Development.
The position exposed me to a lot of the sales side, which sparked my desire to make a change in my career to a sales focused position that would also allow me to help people in their careers. This led me into an Account Manager role with The Creative Group in Orange County, where I spent five years as the Division Director of their sales team prior to joining EPI.
Categories: Merchandise Product Development Alumni
