Eventbrite’s Julia Hartz on Building Resilient Culture, Leading with Empathy, and Redefining Connection in a Post-Pandemic World

by Dr. Jessica Kriegel | Oct 14, 2025

This week, Jessica sat down with Julia Hartz, Co-Founder and CEO of Eventbrite, a global self-service ticketing and event technology platform.

In this conversation, Julia opens up about her leadership journey over two decades of building Eventbrite through economic downturns, digital transformation, and the existential crisis of COVID-19. She reflects on her personal “why,” rooted in the belief that shared, real-life experiences are essential to the human spirit, and describes how that purpose has shaped both the company’s evolution and her own as a leader.

Julia discusses the company’s near-collapse during the pandemic, the radical adaptations that followed, and how Eventbrite emerged with a renewed mission to empower community globally. She shares her perspective on sustainable culture, the power of boomerang employees, gender equity in parental leave, and how empathy, once seen as a liability, is now a core leadership strength.

About Julia Hartz

Julia is co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite, responsible for vision, strategy and growth of the company. Under her leadership, Eventbrite has become a global self-service ticketing and experience technology platform that serves a community of nearly one million event creators around the world. Julia co-founded Eventbrite with a vision to build a self-service platform that would make it possible for anyone to create and sell tickets to live experiences. Today, with more than fifteen years of innovation, Eventbrite is well-placed to empower the next generation of live and online experiences. In addition to her passion for event creators, Julia is focused on cultivating a culture centered around the company’s mission to bring the world together through live experiences. Eventbrite has received multiple awards for its workplace culture, and Julia has been honored as one of Inc.’s Female Founders 100, Fortune’s 40 Under 40 business leaders, Inc.’s 35 Under 35 and Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliahartz/