Behind the Scenes at the Plutus Awards: Meet the Team

Every year at FinCon, we present the Plutus Awards to recognize the best of the personal finance blogosphere. Personal finance bloggers recognize their peers for their accomplishments. However, this sort of event doesn’t put itself on. We have a team working behind the scenes to make it happen.

Plutus Awards Executive Committee

The Executive Committee is made up of Luke Landes, Tom Drake, and Miranda Marquit. Together, the members of the Plutus Awards Executive Committee plan the awards, oversee the voting, and manage sponsors and volunteers.

Luke Landes is the founder of Consumerism Commentary, and the creator of the Plutus Awards. Five years ago, Luke asked fellow bloggers to vote on their favorite blogs, as well as on their favorite financial products and services. The Plutus Awards have grown each year, and this promises to be the biggest year yet.

Luke is the director of the Plutus Awards. He coordinates the Awards, and keeps everything on track.

Tom Drake is the founder of Canadian Finance Blog, and is the owner or partner of several other blogging properties. He handles most of the backend portions of the Plutus Awards, working on the code of the web site, and developing voting forms and other forms. Tom also has a program that tabulates votes to help us understand how many nominations each blog has received to help determine finalists (actual winners are determined by the Blogger Panel) and tabulate votes for the People’s Choice Award (which is determined by popular vote).

Tom was also instrumental in hiring Forest Parks for the Plutus Awards web site redesign.

Miranda Marquit is the writer behind Planting Money Seeds. She writes for several financial web sites and blogs. Miranda is the point of contact for Plutus Awards sponsorships, from coordinating who sponsors the Happy Hour to the companies providing swag for the Plutus Awards Winner Gift Bags. (There are still opportunities to sponsor; email miranda@lukelandes.com for more information.)

Plutus Awards Planning Committee Members

There are also great volunteers helping to plan the events surrounding the Plutus Awards. Here are the rest of the people that make the Plutus Awards possible:

Athena Lent is the founder of According to Athena, a blog about living fabulously on less. Athena is a great events organizer, and is planning the Happy Hour, which will take place following the Plutus Awards ceremony on Saturday, August 20, 2014. In addition to the work required to arrange all aspects of the Happy Hour, Athena is also managing the Plutus Awards Twitter account andFacebook page, handling all social media for the event.

Ashley Jacobs is part of the team at Wise Bread. She is in charge of the ceremony itself. After witnessing her rap skillz at last year’s Plutus Awards ceremony, we asked her to emcee. She’s putting together a fantastic show.

Matt Giovanisci is one of the founders of the Listen, Money Matters podcast. He is known for his humor and quick wit — and his ability with technology. He’s created a great parody song for this year’s Award’s ceremony, and is in charge of audio/visual for the awards.

In addition to those listed above, the Plutus Awards ceremony and everything surrounding the entire season wouldn’t be possible without the help of volunteers throughout the community. At the awards ceremony, a corps of volunteers helps as awards presenters, ushers, stage hands, property managers, stage managers, audio/video technicians, and social media associates, and we all work together to produce a fantastic show that exceeds everyone’s expectations every year.

We’re grateful to all of those who help out with the Plutus Awards, since our team is what makes this production possible.