Impact NextGen: Louise Johnson

Seeing live entertainment can be a seminal, life-altering experience where lifelong passions are formed and lifelong friendships are forged.

Louise Johnson, vice president of marketing for venue secur-
ity tech firm Patriot One, knows how critical those experiences are and how everyone deserves to feel safe when having those experiences.

“I remember the first concert I ever went to, and at high school I used to organize big groups of friends to go and see our favorite bands play. I want to ensure those experiences can still be safely enjoyed by everyone, without safety concerns, and so to be working as part of the solution to make events and venues more secure is a meaningful reason to get up in the morning,” she says.

Technology changes and develops quickly and in a critical and increasingly important space like venue security – where there are new challenges all the time and where venue operators and vendors have to find the balance between maximum safety and patron satisfaction – Johnson says its critical to try new things and be willing to change on the fly.

“I’m part of the last generation that remembers a time before smartphones, and also the first generation that’s expected to have a grasp of all the new technologies – it’s a tricky place to be sometimes,” she said. “But it also means that I approach my job and the ever-changing landscapes of marketing, live events, and security with a sense of agility and flexibility. I always try to encourage our team to try new things, new tools, new technologies, while understanding that not everything will work and pivots are key.”

Johnson also says it’s critical to listen to a wide variety of voices with a wide range of experiences: she likes to check in with a former manager in the luxury hotel business to talk about security challenges for a different point of view and she stays close to a mentor who specializes in emotional intelligence coaching.