Most consultancies know one side of the business. We’ve lived them all .
We are Deirdre Maloney and Minya Quirk—business partners for more than twenty years, creating platforms and experiences that shape industries. Along the way, we founded, scaled, and successfully sold two trade show businesses from the ground up. We’ve also run a PR and sales agency, built wholesale platforms, worked as journalists and buyers, and guided multiple businesses through reinvention and growth.
We’ve been the exhibitor and buyer, the press and the publicist, marketer and producer.
That deep understanding informs how we advise.
We see events as ecosystems where narrative, capital, community, and commerce collide. We know how demand is created, how trust is built, and how industries succeed. Because we’ve carried the risk ourselves. Signed the contracts. And opened the doors one by one, from day one.
We don’t just build events. We craft narratives, forge connections, and create gathering places where industries come alive.
We honed our skills across industries: fashion, then gift, and home design. But our ideas around culture and commuity are limitless.
In twenty years as business partners we’ve established a proven track record for identifying market needs and building successful solutions via industry-disrupting companies with community, curation, and cool-factor at their core.
In 2007 we launched Capsule, the market-changing apparel tradeshow that reshaped the menswear industry and was acquired by Reed Exhibitions in 2013. In 2018, we upended the home industry trade circuit with Shoppe Object, acquired by International Market Centers in 2022.
In 2023 we launched Afternoon Light, a curated e-commerce platform for furniture and home décor. Because we felt the New York market was in need of a new anchor show for design week, and we can never pass up an opportunity to do more, we started one. We currently produce Afternoon Light Design Fair annually.
We live in New York City and the only thing we love more than our city and our entrepreneurial lives here, are our kids.