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How Lumos Turned One Kickoff into a Company-Wide Offsite Program with Marco
Working with Lucy was a game changer. She kept us on track, had great fresh ideas, and handled all of the really detailed work, even coordinating with vendors in Spanish over WhatsApp to make sure every detail was executed perfectly. By the end, she felt like part of our internal team.
See why event leaders at top companies choose Marco.
About Lumos
Lumos builds the first autonomous identity platform, helping IT and security teams manage who has access to what across their entire software stack. Their AI agent, Albus, reasons through access decisions and takes action automatically, replacing weeks of manual review cycles that used to eat up security teams’s time.
Customers include GitHub, MongoDB, Pinterest, Anduril, and Intercom. The company was named to the Forbes America’s Best Startup Employers list in both 2025 and 2026.
Internally, Lumos employees are called "Alchemists," guided by a values framework called The Anatomy of an Alchemist: set the standard, discover to deliver, paint in pink, care genuinely. It’s a company that takes culture seriously, which is exactly why their offsites matter so much. For a remote-first team of 165+, these are the moments that turn shared Slack channels into real relationships.
The Challenge
Lumos was growing fast, but their approach to offsites hadn’t scaled with them.
Planning fell on Katie McDonald, Director of People, and Anna Silberstein, Employee Experience Lead. Both had plenty on their plates already. Every offsite meant weeks of manual work layered on top of their core responsibilities: sourcing venues, negotiating rates, coordinating logistics across time zones, managing dozens of moving pieces that pulled focus from the work they were actually hired to do.
"It was very manual, tons of time involved outside of core job duties," Katie said. "We lacked internal event planning expertise on the people function."
For their FY27 company-wide kickoff, the stakes were higher than ever. Lumos needed to bring 100+ Alchemists together in a location that felt special. The event had to set the strategic and cultural tone for the entire fiscal year, reinforcing their "remote first but connected" philosophy. They needed a partner, not just a vendor.
The Solution
Marco paired Lumos with Lucy, a senior event planner with deep hospitality expertise and the operational instinct to turn a four-night international offsite from overwhelming to effortless.
End-to-end planning, venue to checkout
Lucy and the Marco team handled the full scope: sourcing and securing Dreams Sapphire Resort & Spa in Mexico’s Riviera Maya, negotiating rates, managing the budget, coordinating with vendors (many Spanish-speaking), and designing an experience that balanced strategic work sessions with genuine team connection.
"Lucy is a true event planning and hospitality expert," Katie said. "She handled all the really detailed work, even in Spanish and on WhatsApp, to ensure every detail was executed perfectly."
Fresh ideas that elevated the experience
Rather than a standard corporate agenda, Lucy brought creative programming that surprised the team: group dinners designed to spark conversation, team activities that got people out of their comfort zones, and logistics so seamless that attendees could focus entirely on being present.
"The big group dinners, activities, and easy logistics" were the team’s highlights, Katie noted. The kind of moments that turn a business trip into something people talk about months later.
A planner who felt like a teammate
What set Lucy apart wasn’t just execution. It was how she showed up. She anticipated needs before they became problems, communicated proactively, and adapted in real time.
"She felt like she was part of our internal team by the end," Katie said. "We would want to work with her on all future events with Marco."
Company Size: 165+ employees
Industry: Enterprise Software / Identity & Security
Structure: Remote-first
Funding: Series B
Event: FY27 Company Kickoff
What Marco Delivered
Dreams Sapphire Resort & Spa
Full-Service Execution
End-to-End Planning
50+ Hours Saved
Would Recommend
Full Offsite Program
The Moment
Thursday morning had a different energy. Everyone knew it was the last day, and the closing sessions reflected that. Less icebreakers, more inside jokes. The award ceremony hit different too. People weren't just clapping for top performers; they were cheering for the coworker they'd spent three days actually getting to know.
The afternoon was one last round of activities: guacamole making, beach volleyball, a culinary tour, an art class. Then the final dinner pulled everyone together.
The setup was a step up from the previous nights. Round tables, branded details done tastefully, and that perfect Cabo light doing most of the decorating. Once everyone sat down and the conversations got going, it was pretty obvious: this offsite had done what it was supposed to do.
The CEO's speech wasn't a quarterly update. It was more personal than that. About what it means to build a company where most of your team is in a different time zone, and how weeks like this make the rest of the year work.
Then things got fun. A 360 glam bot, glow-in-the-dark props, and a DJ set that slowly converted every "I don't dance" person in the room. By the end of the night, Lumos didn't feel like a distributed company anymore. They just felt like a team.
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