Member Spotlight – Kristin Sparks

Member Spotlight: Kristin Sparks
Managing Partner and Director of Events
Annunciation Restaurant in the Warehouse District

A born and bred New Orleanian, Kristin’s love of New Orleans’ hospitality was born during her first jobs in the
restaurant business. She attended the University of New Orleans and graduated from the Lester
E Kabacoff College of Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism. While in college, she was serving High
Tea at the Windsor Court Hotel and catering to the discerning guests in the Polo Lounge of the
luxury property. This fostered a lifelong love of high-end food, wine, and dining and an
appreciation of the hard work that went on behind the scenes to execute daily flawless
experiences for local as well as international guests.

An interruption in her Hospitality career came while she was busy raising her greatest
accomplishments-her three kids. This 13 year hiatus allowed her time to focus on more
charitable lead roles such as her time on fundraising committees for organizations such as the
local chapter of the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation. This was her first experience with large
scale event planning and planted the seeds for the next chapter of her life.

In 2015, Kristin began working for Mr. Mudbug/Twelve Seasons Catering in event sales and
business development. The next few years included professional development in catering sales,
event planning, event marketing and event venue management. She quickly progressed to
event management for wedding clients at the most sought after wedding venues across the city
to planning large scale events for corporate clients such as Caesar’s Entertainment and United
Way. Although the hands-on education was invaluable, off site catering presented some of the
greatest challenges she had experienced in her professional career. When the call came that
her help was needed with her family’s restaurant ANNUNCIATION, Kristin knew she was going
to miss the production of the more large-scale events, but anticipated enjoying a more
centralized place to call home.

In 2018, Kristin joined the ANNUNCIATION team as the Director of Events and over her time
there has worn and continues to wear many hats in management, human resources, finance,
and marketing. She has weathered storms like COVID, hurricanes, staff shortages, and inflation.
Being a small business and the only Managing Partner that takes an active role in the business,
the day to day challenges of running a restaurant take up most of Kristin’s time, but she is still
very active in her teens’ busy lives and enjoys quieter moments with her husband of 20 years
and two dogs as time allows. Reading, dining out, and grassroots charitable work help to fill the
limited free time. Since that time is so limited and precious, the things that ground her and bring
her the most joy have also become her priority -her family and giving back to the community.