New founder-led consultancy will provide senior strategic marketing support to event brands and businesses.
Event industry CMO Alex Softley has announced the launch of Tenve, a new strategic marketing consultancy created to help event businesses sharpen their strategy, focus their priorities and build stronger commercial momentum.
Launching late summer, Tenve will work with event organisers, exhibition organisers, agencies, venues, event technology providers, suppliers, media businesses and brands that run their own events. The consultancy has been built for businesses that want marketing to do more than fill a content calendar, with a focus on connecting marketing activity more closely to commercial outcomes.
Alex is currently CMO at isla, the sustainability body for the event industry, and TRACE by isla, its carbon measurement platform for events. He will continue in this role alongside the launch of Tenve. Through the consultancy, he will also open up his experience to a select number of other event industry businesses seeking senior-level strategic marketing support.
Tenve will offer marketing audits, one-off strategy projects, fractional CMO leadership, marketing coaching, and demand and lead generation strategy. It is aimed at teams that need experienced strategic input, but may not need, or be ready for, a full-time senior marketing hire.
Alex brings more than 15 years’ marketing experience, including over a decade working with event and media businesses. His experience spans Northstar Meetings Group, The Meetings Show, M&IT, isla, TRACE by isla and Centaur Media, as well as work with brands including Comic Relief, Global Radio and Friends Life, now part of Aviva.
Alex Softley, founder of Tenve, said:
“Event businesses are putting huge amounts of time, energy and budget into marketing, but many teams do not always have the space to step back and ask whether their activity is really working as hard as it should.
“I started Tenve to give event brands access to senior strategic marketing thinking that is practical, commercial and built around the realities of the industry. The goal is to help businesses understand what matters, where to focus, and how marketing can make a clearer contribution to growth.”
Anna Abdelnoor, CEO and co-founder of isla, said:
“Working with Tenve’s founder Alex Softley over the last few years, first as partners and now with him as our CMO, has consistently reinforced one thing: he never lets you lose sight of the customer.
“Alex has a rare ability to cut through internal enthusiasm and anchor every decision to what the ICP actually wants. He is as precise and commercially sharp as he is creative, always scanning for gaps, uncovering growth opportunities, and connecting the dots from process improvements and positioning through to product ideation.
“And he delivers. Working with minimal marketing budget, Alex helped us grow engagement, sharpen our attribution, and become far more discerning about where we focus our efforts. Any business looking for a strategic marketer who brings both rigour and imagination, and who will always keep the customer at the centre of the room, would be lucky to work with him and Tenve.”
The launch comes as many event businesses continue to face pressure to grow with leaner teams, tighter budgets and more complex buying journeys. Tenve has been created to help those businesses focus on the marketing decisions most likely to improve commercial performance.
Event businesses interested in working with Tenve can now join the waitlist or sign up to the newsletter at tenve.co.uk ahead of its late summer launch. Places will be limited, with availability opening for a select number of clients in the second half of 2026.
Author: Sam Hyland
Sam is the assistant content manager for Event Industry News (EIN). Sam is involved in publishing news stories, videos and podcasts. Sam also collates the latest stories for the EIN e-newsletter. If you have a press release or story you think we might be interested to know about please email features@eventindustrynews.com
