Julia Hartz is the co-founder of Eventbrite, the global self-service ticketing and event management platform she built alongside her husband, Kevin Hartz, in 2006. She served as CEO from 2016 until 2022, led the company through its 2018 IPO on the NYSE, and remains one of the most prominent female founders in Silicon Valley history. Today, she serves as Executive Chair of Eventbrite’s board.
Few founder stories capture the blend of creative instinct and operational grit quite like Julia Hartz’s. She didn’t come from a traditional engineering background, nor did she start out chasing venture capital. Instead, she spent her early career behind the scenes in television production, an experience that would later shape how she thought about live events, audiences, and community.
Her journey from a production coordinator at MTV Networks to the CEO of a publicly traded, billion-dollar ticketing platform is one of the more compelling entrepreneurial arcs in modern tech. This post breaks down who Julia Hartz is, how she built Eventbrite from the ground up, and what her leadership style reveals about building resilient companies.
Who Is Julia Hartz and What Is She Known For?
Julia Hartz is best known as the co-founder and former CEO of Eventbrite, a self-service event management and ticketing platform used by millions of event organizers around the world. She co-founded the company in 2006 with her husband, Kevin Hartz, and Renaud Visage, with the goal of democratizing event ticketing for organizers of all sizes, not just large venues with enterprise budgets.
Julia Hartz led Eventbrite as CEO from 2016 to 2022, guiding the company through its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2018 under the ticker symbol EB. She later transitioned to the role of Executive Chair, staying closely involved in the company’s strategic direction.
What Was Julia Hartz’s Career Before Eventbrite?
Before co-founding Eventbrite, Julia Hartz built a career in the television industry. She worked at Tickets.com and later took on production roles at MTV Networks and Comedy Central, where she was involved in talent booking and production coordination for entertainment programming.
This background matters more than it might seem at first glance. Working inside the entertainment industry gave Julia Hartz a front-row view of how live events were organized, marketed, and monetized, and just how outdated the ticketing infrastructure behind them was. That firsthand frustration became the spark for Eventbrite.
How Did Julia Hartz and Her Co-Founders Start Eventbrite?
Julia Hartz, Kevin Hartz, and Renaud Visage launched Eventbrite in 2006 out of a simple observation: independent event organizers, from local meetups to small conferences, had no easy way to sell tickets online without expensive enterprise software or clunky manual processes.
Eventbrite’s model flipped the traditional ticketing approach on its head. Instead of requiring large upfront contracts, it allowed anyone to create an event page and start selling tickets within minutes, charging a small service fee per ticket instead. This self-service approach lowered the barrier to entry for event creators and helped Eventbrite scale rapidly across categories like conferences, workshops, concerts, and community gatherings.
By focusing on the long tail of event organizers rather than just major venues, Eventbrite carved out a category largely untouched by legacy ticketing giants.
Why Did Julia Hartz Become CEO of Eventbrite?
Julia Hartz officially took over as CEO of Eventbrite in 2016, a role she held through the company’s most significant milestone: its IPO in 2018. Under her leadership, Eventbrite expanded its platform capabilities, invested more heavily in reserved seating and enterprise-level events, and worked to diversify its revenue streams beyond simple ticket fees.
Leading a company through a public offering requires a different skill set than building it in its earliest days, and Julia Hartz’s shift into the CEO seat reflected Eventbrite’s evolution from a scrappy startup into a mature, publicly accountable business.
Choose to study Julia Hartz’s leadership approach if you’re interested in how founders transition from product-focused roles into company-wide executive leadership, particularly through major inflection points like an IPO.
What Happened After Eventbrite’s IPO?
Eventbrite went public on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2018, raising significant capital and cementing its position as one of the most recognizable ticketing brands in the world. The years following the IPO brought new challenges, including the abrupt disruption of live events during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, which forced Eventbrite to pivot quickly toward virtual and hybrid event support.
Julia Hartz navigated the company through this period before stepping down as CEO in 2022. She transitioned into the role of Executive Chair, while her co-founder and husband, Kevin Hartz, returned to take on the CEO role in 2023.
What Makes Julia Hartz Stand Out Among Startup Founders?
Julia Hartz is frequently cited as one of the most influential female founders in the technology sector, and for good reason. She’s one of a relatively small number of women to take a company public as CEO in the tech industry, joining the ranks of leaders like Diane Greene, who co-founded VMware and later led Google Cloud, and other trailblazing women who built and scaled major platforms from the ground up.
Her story also stands out because Eventbrite wasn’t built on a purely technical insight; it was built on a deep understanding of human behavior around live experiences. That distinction has made her a frequently referenced example in discussions about product-market fit driven by empathy rather than pure engineering innovation.
For founders studying different paths to the C-suite, comparing Julia Hartz’s trajectory with other prominent tech executives, such as Susan Wojcicki’s rise at YouTube, offers a useful lens on how varied leadership backgrounds can still lead to major company milestones.
What Can Entrepreneurs Learn From Julia Hartz’s Startup Journey?
A few clear lessons emerge from Julia Hartz’s path from television production to Eventbrite’s boardroom:
- Industry frustration can be a legitimate starting point. Julia Hartz didn’t set out to build a tech company; she built one because she saw a real, specific gap in the events industry.
- Founder roles evolve. Moving from co-founder to CEO, and later to Executive Chair, shows that leadership structures at growing companies aren’t fixed. They shift based on what the business needs at each stage.
- Resilience matters through market shocks. Guiding Eventbrite through the pandemic-era collapse of in-person events required significant adaptability, underscoring how founder-led companies often weather crises by returning to their core mission.
- Building alongside a partner has its own dynamics. Julia Hartz co-founded and later led Eventbrite alongside her husband, Kevin Hartz, offering a distinctive example of a founding team built on a personal partnership as well as a professional one.
Final Thoughts on Julia Hartz’s Legacy
Julia Hartz’s path from television production coordinator to CEO of a publicly traded ticketing giant reflects something entrepreneurs often overlook: meaningful startups can come from firsthand frustration with an industry, not just technical expertise. Her leadership through Eventbrite’s IPO and the pandemic-driven collapse of live events cemented her as one of the more resilient and adaptive founders of her generation.
For those studying founder journeys across the tech industry, Julia Hartz’s story is a strong reminder that building a lasting company often requires stepping into different roles as the business, and the world around it, continues to change.
Frequently Asked Questions About Julia Hartz
What company did Julia Hartz found?
Julia Hartz co-founded Eventbrite in 2006 alongside her husband, Kevin Hartz, and Renaud Visage. Eventbrite is a self-service event management and ticketing platform.
Is Julia Hartz still involved with Eventbrite?
Yes. After stepping down as CEO in 2022, Julia Hartz transitioned into the role of Executive Chair of Eventbrite’s board, remaining closely involved in the company’s strategic direction.
When did Eventbrite go public?
Eventbrite went public on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2018 under the ticker symbol EB.
What did Julia Hartz do before starting Eventbrite?
Before co-founding Eventbrite, Julia Hartz worked at Tickets.com and held production roles at MTV Networks and Comedy Central within the television industry.
Who runs Eventbrite now?
Kevin Hartz, Julia Hartz’s co-founder and husband, returned to the CEO role at Eventbrite in 2023 after she stepped down.
