Mitch Thrower

Mitch Thrower is the CEO, Chairman, and Founder of Events.com, a leading global SaaS platform that helps passionate people create, promote, discover, enjoy, and make the most of every event.  Events.com gives organizers access to a suite of products for every step of the event life cycle, allowing organizers to save time and generate more revenue.  Events.com offers sponsorship and promotional tools, event management software, event calendars, digital marketing services, on-site check-in, and sales to make the event organizing process a smooth experience from start to finish. 

Thrower also serves as Chairman of The La Jolla Foundation, a 501c3 foundation whose primary initiative is Project Active, providing funding, mentoring, encouragement, and education to areas of world tension —specifically — sending sports equipment to children in war zones. 

Thrower Co-Founded Active.com (The Active Network, Inc.). He also launched ActiveEurope.com (Active Europe Network) as Co-Founder and CEO. Active went public before selling to Vista for $1.05 billion. Vista later sold a few divisions of Active to Global Payments for $1.2 billion. 

Thrower was the President and Chief Operating Officer of Triathlete Magazine, the world’s largest triathlon magazine, where he also served as Chairman. He has also served as the Chief Interactive Officer, Strategist & Senior Correspondent for the Competitor Group (CGI), the active lifestyle industry’s leading media and event entertainment company. 

Thrower spoke at his university graduation at St. Lawrence University and has lectured at many colleges such as Stanford University, Anderson School at UCLA, UCSD, and the University of San Diego, where he served as the “Entrepreneur in Residence,” teaching Entrepreneurship. 

Thrower is an active member of TED.com and the Executive Producer of TEDxLaJolla, an independently organized TED event. He is the author of “The Attention Deficit Workplace: Winning Strategies for Success in Today’s Fast-Paced Business Environment” published by Lyons Press, and he was the Author of the popular monthly column “Starting Lines” in Triathlete Magazine for more than a decade. He was also co-author of the travel guide “The Passport,” which, for several years, was distributed to 50,000 college students before traveling abroad each year. 

In 1990, Thrower co-founded his first company and served as CEO of The College/Rail Connection, Inc., serving American Express, AT&T, and Eurail until he sold the venture in 1997. 

Thrower graduated from the Executive Institute at Stanford University. He holds an MBA from the University of San Diego and a bachelor’s degree from Saint Lawrence University. He also studied strategic thought at Yale University. He has competed in 22 Ironman Triathlons, including 13 World Championships. He is the only photojournalist ever to photograph and film the Ironman Triathlon World Championships while competing in the event. 

Thrower is an East Coast native whose father, Fred Thrower, was a television pioneer as Vice President of NBC and also as president of WPIX-TV in New York City and is known for his holiday creation of the televised “Yule Log.” Thrower’s mother, Lori, worked as an assistant for

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in NYC.

Thrower is happily married to his lovely wife Amanda and lives in La Jolla, California with their children.