Disney executives offering jobs. Netflix representatives scouting talent. Book deals signed over coffee. Mom 2.0 Summit has transformed from a content creator conference into a career-changing marketplace where a single conversation can lead to a major opportunity.
Founded in 2008 by Laura Mayes, Vice President of Influencer Programming and Relationships at Everyday Health Pregnancy and Parenting Group, and her business partner Carrie Pacini, Mom 2.0 Summit brings together parent content creators, marketers, and media for three days of structured networking, professional development, and direct brand engagement.
The conference originated after Laura, during her 2005 maternity leave, discovered mom blogs that resonated deeply with her. This personal experience led to a professional experiment at her PR firm, where she found pitches to mom blogs yielded better results and more genuine conversation compared to traditional media.
Recognizing both the power of this community and how it was often dismissively labeled as “mommy bloggers,” Laura and Carrie identified a need for a professional conference in this emerging space.
“The most valuable swag they want is your business card,” says Laura, describing the mindset of brands attending Mom 2.0 Summit. “They’re not there to get junk that people will throw away. They want connections.”
The upcoming 17th edition, scheduled for April 3-5, 2025, at the Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott complex in Orlando, will feature renowned speakers including Dr. Brené Brown, who will explore leadership principles, and Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, who will discuss channeling passion into community activation in the creator economy.
The Strategic Marketplace Design
Mom 2.0 Summit functions as what Laura describes as “a perfect matchmaking service” for both creators and brands seeking partnerships.
This efficiency stems from a deliberate integration of all participants rather than separating them into audience and presenters—an approach born from Laura’s observation in the mid-2000s of what she calls “a sociological phenomenon” where marketers were entering the “sacred space” of mom blogs with widely varying levels of success.
“Everyone is connected. Everyone is sitting next to each other in the sessions,” Laura explains. “You may have a keynote speaker on one side and a marketer on the other. Then the next time you see them, one’s at a booth and the other’s on the stage.”
Image: Mom 2.0 Summit, 2024
Unlike typical conferences where sponsors are isolated in expo halls, Mom 2.0 situates brand representatives “literally right outside the door” of session rooms. This physical proximity creates natural opportunities for follow-up conversations after presentations.
What truly distinguishes this marketplace is the direct communication style of participants. “That’s the advice we always give brands,” Laura notes. “Just tell them what you’re looking for and they’ll be like, ‘Oh, I don’t do that. But you know what, I just met someone there who does that. Let me go find her and I’ll bring her back here.'”
The 2025 Program: Responding to Creator Evolution
The 2025 Summit programming directly addresses the current priorities of parent content creators, as identified through community feedback.
After analyzing submissions from the August 2024 call for speakers and topics, Laura observed a clear shift in focus.
“In 2023, the big things people wanted to talk about were balance, burnout, self-care,” Laura explains. “Then in 2024, the top words were grow, growth, really literally. This year was leadership and business.”
This development reflects the maturing creator economy, with parent content creators moving from pandemic recovery to strategic business development—a transformation from the early days when, as Laura puts it, “mom blogs gave birth to the influencer movement” through content creators who were “coding their own blogs” and “spending a ton of extra time they didn’t have on it for the creative or professional pull.”
The 2025 program responds with keynotes structured as a narrative journey: Brown will open with leadership principles, followed by Tiffany Moon discussing her “joy prescription” for professionals, and culminating in a conversation between Watts and Karen Walrond about “igniting your inner fire.”
Complementing these keynotes are specialized breakout sessions covering creator monetization, content development, and community building. The program includes 18 roundtable discussions, approximately 11 of which are led by participating brands, including Meta (discussing Instagram for teens), Butcher Box, Cookie Finance (specializing in taxes for creators), and Yahoo Creators.
Participants can select four 20-minute roundtable conversations, creating an efficient way to explore multiple partnership opportunities in a single afternoon.
Environment by Design: Creating Clarity Through Conversation
The Summit venue selection—a resort complex housing both the Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott—serves a purpose beyond aesthetics.
As Laura explains, “We want to create an environment that’s really beautiful, aesthetically pleasing, and restful so people can concentrate on themselves.”
Image: Mom 2.0 Summit, 2023
This approach recognizes the unique challenges parent content creators face. They must prepare extensively to leave home and family responsibilities. “We know how much people have to prepare to get out of the house, especially moms,” Laura notes. “All the lists are over to whoever is taking care of things.”
By creating a space that feels “a million miles away from everything,” the Summit facilitates what one speaker described to Laura as the core value proposition: “Conversations create clarity.” This concept encapsulates how direct dialogue with peers and potential partners helps clarify business directions in ways digital communication cannot.
“Sometimes you get the clarity that you maybe already knew, or that you didn’t know and your friend says something and you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh,'” Laura explains. “It may take five conversations. It may not happen magically in one.”
Tangible Outcomes: From Connections to Careers
The Summit’s effectiveness as an opportunity marketplace is evidenced by concrete outcomes from past events. “People have gotten book deals, people have gotten TV deals,” Laura shares, citing specific examples demonstrating the Summit’s impact.
One particularly notable case Laura shares involves Brown, who spoke on a publishing panel at Mom 2.0’s inaugural summit in 2009. Brown returned to host a keynote presentation in 2018, during which she, with Netflix executives in the audience, further demonstrated why her ongoing talks for a Netflix deal were so valuable for the streaming giant.
In another instance, an attendee met a high-level Disney executive at the event who, after following their work online, eventually offered them a position—exemplifying the long-term relationship building that Laura and Carrie envisioned when they created a space where “moms, marketers, and media” could connect professionally.
The United Nations Association of the U.S. launched a program at Mom 2.0 focused on vaccination information, while Dove Skincare developed a self-esteem initiative through connections made at the Summit.
As Laura reveals, Doherty, who has amassed over 2 million TikTok followers, confirmed she would always come to Mom 2.0 to connect with brands and strike business deals.
The Intersection of Creator Career Paths
A distinctive advantage of Mom 2.0 Summit is its recognition of the fluid nature of creator careers.
Image: Mom 2.0 Summit, 2023
The event—born from conversations between Laura and Carrie when they were “the only girls in the room” at tech meetups in Houston—attracts individuals who may occupy different roles in the industry at different times, creating unique networking potential.
“One year, you’re in media, the next year you might be in marketing, or you might be a content creator next year,” Laura observes, adding that this fluidity means attendees might connect with their future employers, collaborators, or clients without realizing it at the time.
The Summit has witnessed numerous career transformations over its history. “We had a woman who was in PR, and she attended as a marketer,” Laura recounts. “Then she came the next year and was on our team as an intern. She was very young. She will be speaking at Mom 2.0 this year as the CEO of Crispin International.”
The Forecast Function: Trends Before They Happen
In addition to immediate business opportunities, Mom 2.0 Summit serves as an early warning system for emerging trends.
“Moms are always ahead of the curve,” Laura asserts, noting that parent content creators often identify cultural and consumer trends years before mainstream recognition.
“Whatever everyone’s talking about in two years, the moms are talking about it right now because it’s coming in through their kids,” she explains.
Laura cites specific examples of this trend forecasting function: “Conversations about race, sexual harassment and gender equality were happening in our community years before they reached the mainstream.”
For example, discussions about the #MeToo movement appeared in the Mom 2.0 community before gaining broader attention, with movement leaders speaking at the event as early as 2011.
Image: Mom 2.0 Summit, 2024
The Return on Investment
For both content creators and brands, the Summit’s effectiveness is measured through tangible outcomes. After 17 years of operation, Laura reports that post-event surveys consistently show “98-99%” of participants find the experience “met or exceeded their expectations.”
Success manifests in what Laura calls “a thousand little successes that our people have,” from affiliate partnerships and mastermind group enrollments to major media appearances and corporate positions.
These outcomes reflect the Summit’s core mission, unchanged since its inception: “to facilitate conversations between moms, marketers, and media.”
This mission statement, consistent since their first 175-person gathering at the Four Seasons in Houston, despite changing from “primarily Gen X mom blogs in 2008” to today’s “primarily Gen Z, Millennial TikTokers or Instagrammers,” highlights the enduring value of meaningful marketplace connections.
As digital work becomes increasingly isolated, with team members “all across the country” as Laura notes about her own organization, the opportunity for in-person connection becomes more valuable.
For professionals operating in the creator economy in 2025, Mom 2.0 Summit offers not just networking but the “shorthand” communication that comes from interacting with peers who understand the given challenges.
“It’s so great to meet someone who’s also in your industry,” Laura observes. “They experience some of the same challenges you do, or they may have a quick fix for something that no one else knows about.”
David Adler is an entrepreneur and freelance blog post writer who enjoys writing about business, entrepreneurship, travel and the influencer marketing space.
Disney executives offering jobs. Netflix representatives scouting talent. Book deals signed over coffee. Mom 2.0 Summit has transformed from a content creator conference into a career-changing marketplace where a single conversation can lead to a major opportunity.
Founded in 2008 by Laura Mayes, Vice President of Influencer Programming and Relationships at Everyday Health Pregnancy and Parenting Group, and her business partner Carrie Pacini, Mom 2.0 Summit brings together parent content creators, marketers, and media for three days of structured networking, professional development, and direct brand engagement.
The conference originated after Laura, during her 2005 maternity leave, discovered mom blogs that resonated deeply with her. This personal experience led to a professional experiment at her PR firm, where she found pitches to mom blogs yielded better results and more genuine conversation compared to traditional media.
Recognizing both the power of this community and how it was often dismissively labeled as “mommy bloggers,” Laura and Carrie identified a need for a professional conference in this emerging space.
“The most valuable swag they want is your business card,” says Laura, describing the mindset of brands attending Mom 2.0 Summit. “They’re not there to get junk that people will throw away. They want connections.”
The upcoming 17th edition, scheduled for April 3-5, 2025, at the Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott complex in Orlando, will feature renowned speakers including Dr. Brené Brown, who will explore leadership principles, and Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, who will discuss channeling passion into community activation in the creator economy.
The Strategic Marketplace Design
Mom 2.0 Summit functions as what Laura describes as “a perfect matchmaking service” for both creators and brands seeking partnerships.
This efficiency stems from a deliberate integration of all participants rather than separating them into audience and presenters—an approach born from Laura’s observation in the mid-2000s of what she calls “a sociological phenomenon” where marketers were entering the “sacred space” of mom blogs with widely varying levels of success.
“Everyone is connected. Everyone is sitting next to each other in the sessions,” Laura explains. “You may have a keynote speaker on one side and a marketer on the other. Then the next time you see them, one’s at a booth and the other’s on the stage.”
Image: Mom 2.0 Summit, 2024
Unlike typical conferences where sponsors are isolated in expo halls, Mom 2.0 situates brand representatives “literally right outside the door” of session rooms. This physical proximity creates natural opportunities for follow-up conversations after presentations.
What truly distinguishes this marketplace is the direct communication style of participants. “That’s the advice we always give brands,” Laura notes. “Just tell them what you’re looking for and they’ll be like, ‘Oh, I don’t do that. But you know what, I just met someone there who does that. Let me go find her and I’ll bring her back here.'”
The 2025 Program: Responding to Creator Evolution
The 2025 Summit programming directly addresses the current priorities of parent content creators, as identified through community feedback.
After analyzing submissions from the August 2024 call for speakers and topics, Laura observed a clear shift in focus.
“In 2023, the big things people wanted to talk about were balance, burnout, self-care,” Laura explains. “Then in 2024, the top words were grow, growth, really literally. This year was leadership and business.”
This development reflects the maturing creator economy, with parent content creators moving from pandemic recovery to strategic business development—a transformation from the early days when, as Laura puts it, “mom blogs gave birth to the influencer movement” through content creators who were “coding their own blogs” and “spending a ton of extra time they didn’t have on it for the creative or professional pull.”
The 2025 program responds with keynotes structured as a narrative journey: Brown will open with leadership principles, followed by Tiffany Moon discussing her “joy prescription” for professionals, and culminating in a conversation between Watts and Karen Walrond about “igniting your inner fire.”
Complementing these keynotes are specialized breakout sessions covering creator monetization, content development, and community building. The program includes 18 roundtable discussions, approximately 11 of which are led by participating brands, including Meta (discussing Instagram for teens), Butcher Box, Cookie Finance (specializing in taxes for creators), and Yahoo Creators.
Participants can select four 20-minute roundtable conversations, creating an efficient way to explore multiple partnership opportunities in a single afternoon.
Environment by Design: Creating Clarity Through Conversation
The Summit venue selection—a resort complex housing both the Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott—serves a purpose beyond aesthetics.
As Laura explains, “We want to create an environment that’s really beautiful, aesthetically pleasing, and restful so people can concentrate on themselves.”
Image: Mom 2.0 Summit, 2023
This approach recognizes the unique challenges parent content creators face. They must prepare extensively to leave home and family responsibilities. “We know how much people have to prepare to get out of the house, especially moms,” Laura notes. “All the lists are over to whoever is taking care of things.”
By creating a space that feels “a million miles away from everything,” the Summit facilitates what one speaker described to Laura as the core value proposition: “Conversations create clarity.” This concept encapsulates how direct dialogue with peers and potential partners helps clarify business directions in ways digital communication cannot.
“Sometimes you get the clarity that you maybe already knew, or that you didn’t know and your friend says something and you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh,'” Laura explains. “It may take five conversations. It may not happen magically in one.”
Tangible Outcomes: From Connections to Careers
The Summit’s effectiveness as an opportunity marketplace is evidenced by concrete outcomes from past events. “People have gotten book deals, people have gotten TV deals,” Laura shares, citing specific examples demonstrating the Summit’s impact.
One particularly notable case Laura shares involves Brown, who spoke on a publishing panel at Mom 2.0’s inaugural summit in 2009. Brown returned to host a keynote presentation in 2018, during which she, with Netflix executives in the audience, further demonstrated why her ongoing talks for a Netflix deal were so valuable for the streaming giant.
In another instance, an attendee met a high-level Disney executive at the event who, after following their work online, eventually offered them a position—exemplifying the long-term relationship building that Laura and Carrie envisioned when they created a space where “moms, marketers, and media” could connect professionally.
The United Nations Association of the U.S. launched a program at Mom 2.0 focused on vaccination information, while Dove Skincare developed a self-esteem initiative through connections made at the Summit.
As Laura reveals, Doherty, who has amassed over 2 million TikTok followers, confirmed she would always come to Mom 2.0 to connect with brands and strike business deals.
The Intersection of Creator Career Paths
A distinctive advantage of Mom 2.0 Summit is its recognition of the fluid nature of creator careers.
Image: Mom 2.0 Summit, 2023
The event—born from conversations between Laura and Carrie when they were “the only girls in the room” at tech meetups in Houston—attracts individuals who may occupy different roles in the industry at different times, creating unique networking potential.
“One year, you’re in media, the next year you might be in marketing, or you might be a content creator next year,” Laura observes, adding that this fluidity means attendees might connect with their future employers, collaborators, or clients without realizing it at the time.
The Summit has witnessed numerous career transformations over its history. “We had a woman who was in PR, and she attended as a marketer,” Laura recounts. “Then she came the next year and was on our team as an intern. She was very young. She will be speaking at Mom 2.0 this year as the CEO of Crispin International.”
The Forecast Function: Trends Before They Happen
In addition to immediate business opportunities, Mom 2.0 Summit serves as an early warning system for emerging trends.
“Moms are always ahead of the curve,” Laura asserts, noting that parent content creators often identify cultural and consumer trends years before mainstream recognition.
“Whatever everyone’s talking about in two years, the moms are talking about it right now because it’s coming in through their kids,” she explains.
Laura cites specific examples of this trend forecasting function: “Conversations about race, sexual harassment and gender equality were happening in our community years before they reached the mainstream.”
For example, discussions about the #MeToo movement appeared in the Mom 2.0 community before gaining broader attention, with movement leaders speaking at the event as early as 2011.
Image: Mom 2.0 Summit, 2024
The Return on Investment
For both content creators and brands, the Summit’s effectiveness is measured through tangible outcomes. After 17 years of operation, Laura reports that post-event surveys consistently show “98-99%” of participants find the experience “met or exceeded their expectations.”
Success manifests in what Laura calls “a thousand little successes that our people have,” from affiliate partnerships and mastermind group enrollments to major media appearances and corporate positions.
These outcomes reflect the Summit’s core mission, unchanged since its inception: “to facilitate conversations between moms, marketers, and media.”
This mission statement, consistent since their first 175-person gathering at the Four Seasons in Houston, despite changing from “primarily Gen X mom blogs in 2008” to today’s “primarily Gen Z, Millennial TikTokers or Instagrammers,” highlights the enduring value of meaningful marketplace connections.
As digital work becomes increasingly isolated, with team members “all across the country” as Laura notes about her own organization, the opportunity for in-person connection becomes more valuable.
For professionals operating in the creator economy in 2025, Mom 2.0 Summit offers not just networking but the “shorthand” communication that comes from interacting with peers who understand the given challenges.
“It’s so great to meet someone who’s also in your industry,” Laura observes. “They experience some of the same challenges you do, or they may have a quick fix for something that no one else knows about.”
For more information, visit Mom 2.0’s website.