Meet the industry insiders behind XP Land

We’ve already mentioned that XP Land was founded by industry insiders — experts in concepting, designing, producing, marketing and covering experiential — but we wanted to give you a bit more of an up-close-and-personal look at who we are. This team has written books, led newsrooms, built escape rooms, and, of course, produced culture-shifting, impact-driving and revenue-generating events at Art Basel, the Oscars and beyond. So, without further ado, here’s who we are:

Meet our founder

Up first, meet our fearless founder, named one of the Top People in Events and Most Innovative Experience Makers around, Erica Boeke. In addition to running XP Land, Erica is the CEO of Liberty & Company, a creative agency and consultancy dedicated to experiential storytelling founded in 2018. Prior to L&Co., she ran Condé Nast’s experiential division and held lead marketing roles at Fast Company, WIRED, Architectural Digest, GQ and the New York Times. Erica began her career in journalism, receiving her M.S. from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism and going on to write for the San Francisco Giants magazine. She is the author of two books, one on politics and one on sports, the latter of which she optioned for a TV series called “Attagirl” about the summer she and her dad ushered for a minor league baseball team.

Meet the team

Next, meet Heather Grossmann, XP Land’s head of content. Heather specializes in launching newsrooms and new revenue products for media organizations. In addition to her role with XP Land, she is the founder and editor of Boss Betty, a publication focused on workplace gender equality. She also serves as editorial director for a forthcoming data product from the real estate news publication The Real Deal. Heather got her graduate degree from the Columbia Journalism School and prior to that worked on events and programming for Condé Nast, Intelligence Squared, the New York Times, Bloomberg and other media organizations.

Also part of XP Land’s guiding team is Caitie Murphy, whose experience across media, experiential and brand disciplines includes leadership roles at WIRED and Architectural Digest, where she ran brand and client marketing initiatives across platforms. In these roles, she and her team built large-scale installations at Art Basel Miami Beach, created the exclusive VIP Greenroom at the Academy Awards and spearheaded multi-faceted B2B and consumer experiences across categories. In addition to overseeing Strategy for XP Land, Caitie is a partner at Liberty & Company. 

Up next is Anne Woodard, XP Land’s marketing director and a career XP leader. Her first job, with Contemporary Marketing, Inc./SFX Entertainment, had her traveling around the country executive large-scale events? for Fortune 500 companies. Since that time, she spent the bulk of her career at Condé Nast, where she worked within the marketing departments at GQ, Gourmet, Condé Nast Food Group, Architectural Digest, and the experiential departments at Teen Vogue and WIRED. A few of Anne’s highlights from this time include managing Gourmet’s three television properties and launching a new flavor of Häagen-Dazs ice cream (!). 

And last, but most certainly not least, is Nick Lawson, XP Land’s site director and resident amusement park aficionado. Nick’s interest in XP stemmed from his childhood obsession with challenges on the reality TV show “Survivor,” leading him to develop and host a lunchtime game show series for his classmates in high school. In his eclectic early career, Nick managed a Stanford neuroscience lab, built high-tech escape rooms and wrote a pun-packed travel blog as he visited all of the National Parks in the lower 48 states. He’s especially interested in how XP is an untapped tool for learning, and plans to continue developing radical XP that bridges the gap between learning and fun.

Beyond the core team…

In addition to this core team behind XP Land, we work with a steady stable of writers and contributors to offer expert analysis and behind-the-scenes insight on the industry’s latest news and trends, and to ensure that our website, newsletter and social media content are reaching you, wherever you like to engage. You can meet a few of these contributors over on our About page, and discover them across our coverage in the months and years to come. 

Join us in XP Land. A community for experiential creatives and experience-makers, brand leaders and IP-owners, space stewards and venue visionaries — all of those in the business of epic gatherings and live, immersive storytelling.