February 27, 2026 - So Worth It Kaelyn Query and Building Authority Rusty Shelton

Kaelyn Query – Award-winning Event Producer and Author of So Worth It! 

We actually make more money doing less events because we’re spending more time on each these clients then become repeat clients. A lot of our corporate clients were on retainer for them, and so we actually do better with less events. What a wild concept, right?

Kaelyn Query Caldwell is an award-winning event producer, small business owner, serial entrepreneur, author of So Worth It!, consultant, professor, and public speaker based in Lexington, Kentucky whose work spans clients across the United States and beyond. She began her career in events and hospitality during high school and turned her passion into a professional venture in 2013, eventually founding multiple successful companies including Kentucky Event Company, LexEffect Venues, and My Wedding Planner while producing countless events nationally and internationally. Kaelyn hosts the Big Ideas Small Business podcast and serves as the Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Transylvania University, where she mentors and teaches aspiring business leaders. Her entrepreneurial achievements have earned her numerous honors such as Entrepreneur of the Year and Top Event Planner recognitions, and she is active in her community through leadership and board roles. When she is not creating experiences or writing, Kaelyn enjoys travel, cooking, and time with her wife and son. Rusty Shelton – Founder of Zilker Media and Co-Author of “The Authority Advantage: Building Thought Leadership Focused on Impact Not Ego“

The way you punch above your weight class today is not to lead as a company with something to sell. Instead, it’s to lead as a thought leader with something to teach.

Rusty Shelton is the Founder of Zilker Media and Co-Author of “The Authority Advantage: Building Thought Leadership Focused on Impact Not Ego“. Rusty Shelton first spoke at Harvard on the changing world of marketing and PR at the age of 23. He is a bestselling author, dynamic keynote speaker and successful entrepreneur who has focused his career on helping leaders build thought leadership focused on impact, not ego, writing three acclaimed books and speaking around the world to a variety of audiences, from YPO to SXSW Interactive to Forbes. He is Chairman of Zilker Media, an award-winning agency based in Austin, TX that builds people-driven brands and Senior Marketing Strategist at Forbes Books. Rusty’s keynotes blend humor and targeted examples to challenge assumptions about personal branding, showing audiences how to build authentic thought leadership focused on impact, not ego. He’s known for a mix of story-telling, candor and practical, put-it-into-action-next-week guidance – showing leaders how to make an impact and build trust in an increasingly skeptical world – and have a lot of fun along the way. He has shared the stage with Steve Forbes and Alan Mulally, spoken for YPO, EO, SXSW Interactive, the University of Texas, numerous Fortune 1000 companies and served on the faculty at more than 20 Harvard Medical School CME courses. He is the co-author (alongside Adam Witty) of The Authority Advantage: Building Thought Leadership Focused on Impact, Not Ego (ForbesBooks, 2023), which features a foreword from David Meerman Scott, Authority Marketing: How to Leverage 7 Pillars of Thought Leadership to Make Competition Irrelevant (ForbesBooks, 2018), which features a foreword from Steve Forbes, and co-author (alongside Barbara Cave Henricks) of Mastering the New Media Landscape: Embrace the Micromedia Mindset (Berrett-Koehler, 2016). An avid Texas Longhorns fan, he sits on the University of Texas Texas Exes PR Committee and is a proud member of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) in Austin, where he serves on the board. He lives just west of Austin in Spicewood with his wife, Paige and three children (Luke, Brady & Sadie) and their very rowdy black lab, Charlie. Rusty loves to play golf, fish, coach his sons’ sports teams and is the QB for Lake Travis’ top “old man” flag football