Brooke Palmer Kuhl, 39

Brooke Palmer Kuhl’s client list would make anyone gawk.

The 39-year-old has handled events and public relations for celebrities including Joe Maddon, Olivia Newton John, Ryan Nece, Vincent Lecavalier, Warren Sapp, Jared Jeffries, Mike Peterson and Simeon Rice.

She helped plan parties for P. Diddy, Deion Sanders and Winky Wright for Super Bowl XLIII, as well as planned the Huffington Post Oasis and events for Florida  Attorney General Pam Bondi and former Gov. Jeb Bush at the Republican National Convention. She’s partnered with brands like Heineken, Moet Hennessy and Ciroc vodka to throw parties.

In Tampa, her clients include Bern’s Steak House and the Epicurean Hotel, Oystercatchers and Armani’s at the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay, the Gold and Diamond Source, Orangetheory Fitness Tampa Bay and Reeves Import Motorcars.

Palmer Kuhl credits finding a business coach and leveraging mentorship opportunities as one of the best business decisions she’s ever made.

“She transformed the way I do business,” Palmer Kuhl says. “In a three-year period, I quadrupled business with her help.” It was a no-brainer for Palmer Kuhl, a former college athlete who spent her whole life working with coaches.

Her coach taught her that “you always touch your mail and do your invoices; know what’s coming in and out.” Not knowing which direction money is headed is the death of a small business, Palmer Kuhl says. Even though she works with a bookkeeper, Palmer Kuhl keeps a close eye on every invoice.

Palmer Kuhl says Bern’s is not just her favorite place to network because the restaurant is one of her clients. “If you are a mover or shaker coming through town, you go through there.”

She credits Bern’s for being a place where she’s met CEOs, international bankers and professional athletes.

Though her love for planning parties started at 5 years old planning tea parties for her friends, her favorite event that she’s ever hosted was her “small party” (sarcastically said) wedding, where she was able to work “with her best friends in the industry on the most important day of (her) life.”

— Traci McMillan Beach

Q&A

Name: Brooke Palmer Kuhl

Age: 39

City of residence: St. Petersburg, FL

Twitter handle: @rsbpevents

Employer: RSBP Events+ PR

Title: President

Birthplace: Fairfax, Va.

Years on the Gulf Coast: 16

Marital status/children: married, 3 fur kids (two dogs are rescue pit bulls from the Humane Society, the third is a Siberian Husky.)

Alma mater: Vanderbilt University, USF (grad school)

Best place to network: Bern's Bar. I know that sounds like an interesting choice, but I have met some incredible people there that have changed my life and career.

Coolest business experience: the RNC, exhausting, but incredible. I had more badges and places to be than I had time for. Total insanity, and some of the best memories ever.

Messy desk or clean workspace: clean workspace

Best business lesson ever learned: Be the cream that rises to the top of the cup.

A website that makes your job easier: anything on Google

Community group you’re most involved with: Humane Society of Tampa Bay

Favorite off-hours activity: working out at Orangetheory Fitness and time with my husband and dogs

Two people, dead or alive, you’d like to have dinner with: Marcus Lemonis, from The Profit and President Lincoln. Nikolai Tesla would be kind of cerebral too.

What you would be doing if you could pick another career: veterinarian

Top item on your bucket list: Travel to all 7 continents. I have been to 6. My top bucket list item was to go on safari in Africa and we went on the most incredible trip to South Africa and Zambia this past summer with my twin sister.

Skill you’d like to learn: play guitar or piano (I play the drums)

Who would play you in a movie about your life: Reese Witherspoon (so I have been told)

If I had a magic wand: I'd be riding a unicorn ...