Gen Phoenix is a textile manufacturer that stands out among competitors in the $1 trillion global industry thanks to its upcycling technology, which deconstructs leather waste into fibers before building them back up into a premium material.
Its chief marketing officer (CMO), Elyse Winer, is leading the company’s charge further into the luxury leather goods and footwear markets—and events have been a pivotal part of that.
Most recently, Winer herself appeared on a panel at the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last month alongside Coach CEO and brand president Todd Kahn.
The session, titled “Revolutionizing Luxury: Sustainability and Innovation in Fashion,” offered a behind-the-scenes look at Gen Phoenix and Coach’s partnership, which was established in March 2023 when Coach-parent Tapestry Inc. made a strategic investment in England-based Gen Phoenix, and expanded a month later when Coach debuted a line of handbags (called Coachtopia) featuring Gen Phoenix’s recycled leather materials.
CES is an event Winer prioritizes—she also appeared on a panel during CES 2024 to discuss Gen Phoenix’s partnership with Dr. Martens—because it draws an audience of Gen Phoenix’s “potential customers or partners.”
On the contrary, it doesn’t contribute to business objectives to attend
“an event that feels more like the industry talking to itself—where the audience is primarily made up of peers [and] competitors and others in the same space,” Winer advised. “In these situations, the value is often limited to networking and industry validation, without a clear ROI in terms of new business, customer acquisition or advancing our sustainability mission.”
With the right audience, however, this is just how powerful an event can be:
“In 2025, we were able to drive a 550% increase in press coverage around CES compared to the previous year,”
Winer said, attributing the impressive increase to the panel format, which lends itself to storytelling.
“Beyond press coverage, we drove further engagement on owned platforms like LinkedIn, with posts about the panel showing a marked spike in clicks and impressions,”
Winer said, adding that aligning with an already “notable brand like Coach generated new interest from other companies in the industry in working with Gen Phoenix to achieve their sustainability goals by incorporating our material into their product lines.”
Many of the events Gen Phoenix attends serve as “valuable platforms to educate audiences.” Exhibiting is also part of that, particularly for the transport-seating side of the business, Winer said. Gen Phoenix made waves in the sector in May, when its partnership with aircraft dress cover firm Sabeti Wain Aerospace and transport design consultancy Doy Design resulted in the launch of the aviation industry’s first-ever fully recyclable aircraft dress cover.
To further get prospective customers to understand Gen Phoenix’s mission and experience its never-before-seen products, it’s also known to participate in industry trade shows, per Winer, who said that interactive trade show booths are “essential for lead generation and strengthening customer relationships.”
“For example, we have a dedicated exhibition space at the Aircraft Interiors International Expo in Hamburg, Germany, each year,” Winer said. “This event serves as a key opportunity for us to unveil groundbreaking innovations, such as last year’s launch of the industry’s first fully circular seat.”
And while “industry events are the cornerstone of our strategy,” they’re also pivotal internally, for “socializing and team-building,”
Winer said. Under her reign as CMO, Gen Phoenix introduced its first-ever companywide event, RISE 2025, earlier this year, where new company values— the “Five Flames”—were introduced. And in the spirit of Gen Phoenix’s sustainable mission, Winer said that a highlight of RISE 2025 was the “Water Works challenge, where our team built 25 life-saving water filters for communities in need. These filters help combat the spread of waterborne illnesses, providing clean water and improving health and opportunities for those in underdeveloped regions,” she explained.
Gen Phoenix’s all-in approach on events has served it well. Thus, it’s clear that 2025 is already shaping up to prioritize events as a marketing medium: Gen Phoenix sponsored the 2025 Automotive Seating Innovation conference in early February, which included an on-stage session hosted by Gen Phoenix chief innovation officer (CIO) Nico Den Ouden. One week later, Gen Phoenix had representation at the MRO Middle East exhibition in Dubai; and next month, Winer is slated to speak on stage at Sourcing Journal’s Sustainability Summit. It’s also set to return to the 2025 Aircraft Interiors International Expo in April. …and that’s just within the first half of the year.
Winer concluded:
“In-person events offer a unique value that virtual interactions simply can’t replicate. While we stay connected with our customers and remote employees virtually daily, the energy, momentum and deeper relationship-building that happen face-to-face are unparalleled.”
See how events are also playing a major role for other CMOs of major companies in Vendelux’s latest series, “A CMO’s View on Events:”
