Julia Hartz

Current Company

Eventbrite — Co-Founder & CEO

Building the Operating System for Live Events

Julia Hartz co-founded Eventbrite in 2006 with her now-husband Kevin Hartz and Renaud Visage, creating a self-service platform that made it possible for anyone — from neighborhood yoga instructors to massive music festivals — to create, promote, and sell tickets to events online. Before Eventbrite, Julia Hartz worked in television development at FX Networks, an experience that gave her a deep appreciation for how live experiences bring people together.

Julia Hartz became CEO of Eventbrite in 2016 and took the company public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2018. Under her leadership, Eventbrite has processed billions of dollars in gross ticket sales and powered millions of events annually across 180 countries. The platform serves a long tail of creators and organizers that larger ticketing companies like Ticketmaster have traditionally ignored.

Leading Through the Live-Events Collapse

The COVID-19 pandemic was an existential threat to Eventbrite — live events, the company's entire reason for existence, effectively stopped worldwide. Julia Hartz navigated the crisis with a combination of cost discipline and product innovation, rapidly pivoting to support virtual and hybrid events while preparing for the eventual return of in-person gatherings. The experience cemented her reputation as a steady, decisive leader capable of managing through extreme uncertainty.

As CEO, Julia Hartz has also been an outspoken advocate for diversity in tech leadership and for building sustainable, profitable businesses rather than chasing growth at all costs. Eventbrite's path to profitability under her leadership reflects a broader shift in the tech industry toward operational discipline, and Julia Hartz has been at the forefront of that movement.