About

Michelle Dunnick, MBA, CPCE has been a member of the events industry for the past 13 years.  As a recent graduate, Michelle joined the Tales of the Cocktail team. For those who are not familiar with this festival, Tales of the Cocktail is an international cocktail festival held in New Orleans each summer to stimulate business for the hospitality and tourism industry during the slowest economic time of the year. Michelle is most proud of producing and growing the Spirited Awards to what they are today. This awards show is regarded as the most prestigious and coveted honors in the spirits industry. Over her 9 years at Tales, Michelle honed her marketing and event planning skills, as well as joined NACE New Orleans as the director of marketing.

In 2012, Michelle took a short hiatus from the board to attend graduate school, where she earned her Master’s in Business Administration.  In 2014, Michelle returned to the board as director of programs and education.  From there she grew to become vice president, president and now serves as immediate past president of the New Orleans chapter. 

As president, Michelle led the chapter’s renaissance. She had goals to increase membership engagement and retention, so she split the role of director of membership into two positions: director of membership recruitment and director of membership engagement, which proved to be successful.  NACE New Orleans most recently was the recipient of Membership growth, retention, and fall member campaign at Evolve 2020.  To further recruit and engage members, Michelle created the chapter’s own member benefits brochure and the strategic partnership program, as well as bringing back the chapter’s awards program, which took a 10-year hiatus. 

Today, Michelle is the director of events and investor relations for the United Way of Southeast Louisiana, where she oversees the organization’s fundraiser and the donor engagement group, Women United. Through her work at United Way and Women United, Michelle has learned the value of advocacy work to create change, as well as the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion training. 

Michelle currently serves NACE National as the Certification Committee Chair after serving as a committee member for many years.  She also authored the sales and marketing chapter of the revised version of the Official CPCE Study Guide, which will be released later this year. Michelle has been recognized by her chapter and was a 2019 nominee for NACE National Member of the Year.  Most recently, Michelle was named a 2020 25 Young Event Pros to Watch by The Special Event magazine for her commitment to making positive change in our community.

As your NACE National Treasurer, Michelle will bring her passion for helping others to the position, which includes assisting members to find their feet during and post-pandemic. She will bring her unique NACE experience, perspective, and diverse background to the national board as we rebuild our membership, savings, and industry. Michelle is committed to the members and vows to be fiscally responsible with the members’ money, while always keeping the membership experience in mind.