Katherine Frost, CEO & Founder at ORO, Best WomenLeaders of 2021 Profile

Katherine Frost
CEO & Founder at ORO


Katherine Frost, CEO & Founder at ORO, Best WomenLeaders of 2021

“Streamlining Event Management”

Katherine Frost, CEO & Founder, ORO, has always been an out-of-the-box, creative thinker. An art major at Southern Methodist University and social chair for my sorority there, she specialized in planning elaborate parties and creating beautiful paintings. Deconstructing pieces and putting together events in new ways is something she has carried throughout her career thus far. “I have been in events my whole life and constantly found ways to improve the inefficiencies I was noticing in planning, execution, and design flaws,” she says. “I got to the point where I was planning over 30 events in a year for my own luxury planning firm and felt taking on more events would be a detriment to my clients and the level of service I strived to provide.” She hired a full-time employee, but she wanted an app to manage vendors and clients in a better way. Katherine started sketching what this dream app would look like, the features that would be critical to the planning process, and how it would work; thus, ORO was born. “It wasn’t enough to have the software, I wanted to bring hospitality back to those in hospitality. With an added touch of a concierge service, live demos, and handwritten thank you notes, I have made software an experience for planners not just a platform. We strive to make ORO the favorite tool in the planner kit.”

“We are event professionals, designers, and engineers building a forward-thinking, delightfully elegant software product called ORO. We challenge convention, learn willingly and treat each other like family.”

Katherine asked her partner, Bowden, about creating an innovative app, streamlining the whole event management process. “I said—there is an app for everything except for me. There are DIY planning sites for the DIY brides and there many different sales and CRM platforms but there is not a platform that streamlines the operations process.” So, Bowden and Katherine met up and discussed how this product would be designed, who would need to be involved and how to get it started. This product took three years to make and is still the only product on the market for those planning events.

According to Katherine, with the current employee shortage affecting hospitality, owners turn to tech to bridge the gap. With ORO, planners can manage clients via a personal tagging system linked to their app. Clients can then track invoices, inventory quantities, guest count, etc. Planners can share specific information with their vendors by sending a specific timeline, vendor inventory list, floor plan, design board, or sketches at the touch of a button instead of digging through binders or multiple digital folders. Planners can plan from anywhere and access all the organizations on their phones or tablets.

“We listened to our planners and launched our design board over the summer to help planners with their events. The design board is completely customizable and orders pictures within how the planner sees fit. The pictures are true to size if clicked on or moved but working on small screens, you want to see everything at your fingertips first,” says Katherine. “Boards can be copied between events and sent to vendors looking for the client’s event inspiration. Every event and planner is unique, we want to continue to listen and adapt with them.”

Starting her planning firm at the age of 26 was a bold move for Katherine. She left her corporate planning job and dove right into the luxury event planning firm. She has been guiding and inspiring women from all industries with her aggressive and go-getter attitude. “I chatted with potential clients and would either find a way to make smaller or low budget events work for all parties involved or give them friendly advice on planning the event themselves. By supporting other businesses, it made my own business stronger, after all, sharing is caring.” She advices others by saying, “There is an expression among Texans, go big or go home. These words could not be truer for what I have been able accomplished so far. I want to inspire this in young women striving to not only change the workplace but also how we use products and technology in our everyday lives.” IE


Company

ORO

Management

Katherine Frost
CEO & Founder at ORO

Description

ORO is an event planning platform optimized for speed and productivity. If you are a professional planner, this is the tool to help you achieve more.


WomenLeaders Special Magazine