A LinkedIn Message Changed Her Life! Isabelle’s Jaw-Dropping Evolution From Internet Sleuth to Venue Manager but I said, ‘Absolutely, sign me up!’ He asked me to meet him the next morning at the Chelsea space. We met, and I never left!” Isabelle has been the director of sales and events at Lavan New York ever since. During the pandemic, she also helped produce virtual events for Eventique. She and Liron still joke about the “LinkedIn stalking situation” that brought them together — but the drive and ambition that pushed her to send that message also make her an excellent venue manager. “I’m constantly looking at the large companies and offices in our area and thinking creatively about who would be hosting an event and who could utilize a space like us,” she says. “I also look at which events are happening in New York City, who is behind them, and how I can get a conversation going with that team and those key decision makers.” On Isabelle’s watch, the two Lavan spaces Liron co-founded in Chelsea and Midtown have adapted to accommodate brand activations, fashion shows, corporate meetings, experiential events, private parties, high- end dinners, and more. Lavan Chelsea’s 270-degree projection allows full customization and branding: It became a bamboo forest for a Hennessy Lunar New Year party and a garden for Marc Jacobs. For the latter, producers completed the immersion by trucking in live plants and pouring mulch across the floor. At the 10,000-square-foot Midtown space, one client crafted their own club complete with a sunken dance floor. “People ask me, ‘Do you get bored working in the same spaces every day?’ And I tell them it’s the exact opposite because each day I get to
Ask Isabelle Sassano about her life, and you might start to wonder whether she’s secretly an early 2000s movie heroine. Why? Well, like an ambitious but down-on- her-luck Sarah Jessica Parker or Anne Hathaway, she landed her current job at Eventique’s associated event venue company, Lavan New York, thanks to the power of persistence — and a well-timed LinkedIn message. While earning her undergraduate degree in public relations in Virginia, Isabelle daydreamed about working in event production in New York City. She spent hours scrolling online, picking out her dream companies and reading up on their CEOs. Then, in her junior year, she finally worked up the confidence to message one: Eventique Founder and Executive Producer Liron David. “Years later, he still has the messages!” Isabelle says, chuckling. “I told him, ‘I will fetch coffee for eight hours a day, unpaid. I just want to learn from you.’” Eventique didn’t have any internships available at the time, but Liron told Isabelle to check back with him after the New Year — and she did, sending her next message promptly on Jan. 1! A position never panned out, but they stayed in touch, and eventually Isabelle leveraged her experience planning weddings and private events to move to New York City. “I reached out on LinkedIn [again] and asked Liron to get coffee,” she recalls. “I didn’t know many people in the city, but I wanted to make an industry connection! One thing led to another, and he asked me if I was open to managing an event space. It was like nothing I had ever done before,
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