Annastasia Gallaher

My name is Annastasia Gallaher and I am running for Director of Membership for Sakura-Con. I felt like it was important to post something for those of you that have not worked with me directly, or in a limited capacity, so you could make an informed decision in regards to voting for the Membership position in elections.

I have been with the convention for over a decade now. The majority of my time as a volunteer has been in Registration or in Membership, where I have served in various capacities. I have been on the board as part of the Membership directorate since 2013, and the Director since 2014. Since then, I have worked to expand Registration capabilities and reduce line wait times, helped reformat Staff Preservation to better serve our staff, continuously improve our internal registration systems with our Registration Development team, as well as improve Staff Registration through Membership Office and our online tool. The majority of what Membership does is behind the scenes – this is a very busy department that requires hands-on director involvement year-round.

By day, I am a Technical Project Manager/Senior Scrum Master for a software development organization at a technology company. I have a BS in Business Management and am pursuing a BS in Software Development as well. I have been managing Membership in a similar way to the way that I have ran most of my projects, as often as possible, using collaboration tools and processes that make sense for the way that we sell Memberships and serve our Members as a whole, including our staff. My technical background has lead to a handful of sustainable technical changes that we will be rolling out to the organization around Memberships in the next year or two, in order to grow alongside our technically evolving world.

The most important thing that I would like you to know is that I love working with both my staff and the staff of other departments to make sure that the membership registration process for both staff and attendees is as smooth as possible, and that anything that we can do to make the rest of the convention run smoother, we accomplish. I have been privileged to work with incredible staff across the convention the last 6+ convention years, and I would love the opportunity to keep working with all of you. I have big plans for Membership the next two years, and I ask for your support in me to be the Membership Director for 2019-2020.