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Using Her Superpowers: Meghan Jarrell and Moxxie Concepts
“I’m exhausted.”
Meghan Jarrell has every right to be exhausted. She had only just returned from doing 32 events in eight states in five weeks for an online charter school with campuses in those eight states.
I’m going to repeat that. Meghan coordinated thirty-two events in eight states in five weeks. AND she did two events the day before we met at Leaves Bakery & Books to talk over tea and baked goodies.
Honestly? I’m exhausted for her.
Since 2017, Moxxie Concepts, Meghan’s full-service event production agency, has been making corporate events sparkle. She’s the reason that her clients get to enjoy their own celebrations. What’s more, she’s been making sure events run smoothly since she was in college.
photo credit: Omorfia Imagery
Meghan grew up in a suburb of Houston and graduated from Friendswood High School. “I graduated from high school and didn’t know what I was doing. Absolutely no clue,” she said. “So I started at a local community college and then moved over to Texas State [University in San Marcos].”
At Texas State, Meghan was in charge of the student orientation program, in which she coordinated the new student weekend where the school tries its best to get interested high schoolers to apply to attend Texas State. It involved everyone from the school’s president to the faculty to the cheerleaders.
But college wasn’t the easiest for Meghan. Although she’s brilliant (and that’s not authorial exaggeration), she also has autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), although she, like so many females, wasn’t diagnosed until she was 34. “I had to go to class,” Meghan said. “It wasn’t easy. I had to get out of bed and go to class. I was on academic probation at some point.”
Despite her struggles with class attendance, Meghan did graduate from Texas State with a degree in family and interpersonal communications. Still, after graduation, she faced the problem that so many young college graduates face.
What now?
“People would ask me, ‘What are you going to do when you graduate?’ Over and over. And I had no idea,” Meghan said. “I honestly couldn’t tell them. So I would make a joke. ‘I’m going to Africa.’ I told so many people that, so when I graduated, I thought, ‘I guess I gotta go to Africa.’”
So, she went to Africa with a missionary organization for a year.
After returning from Africa to Houston, Meghan still didn’t know what she wanted to do. “My parents said, ‘You can live here for a little while, but you have to get a job.’” Meghan grinned, “They always told me that I had to work. I mean, they made me get a job when I was 15. I’m glad they did that. It was good training.”
(By “parents,” Meghan means her mother and stepfather, Norm. She’s quick to point out that she has a great relationship with her father, Bill, but because her parents divorced when she was young, she doesn’t think “step” father and “step” siblings. She just thinks “family.”)
Most college graduates do not dream of moving back in with their parents, and Meghan was the same. Two of her cousins lived in Austin, so she started looking for jobs in Austin. “I started working at the Omni Hotel [in downtown Austin],” Meghan said. “It was in hospitality, and I reasoned, ‘I’m hospitable. I can do this.’”
Moxxie Concepts Open House
Photo courtesy of Moxxie Concepts
While hospitality is big business in our state capital, it doesn’t pay well. However, it was easy to take on side work to try to make ends meet. Meghan started volunteering at a children’s shelter because the work she did in Africa was with a children’s shelter. Suddenly, she’s in charge of coordinating the shelter’s million-dollar fundraising gala. She was 24.
That’s how good she is.
She hopped around, working at various nonprofits, coordinating events. Her events raised money for abused children, abused animals, and other worthy recipients. Before long, she caught the attention of St. Edward’s University in Austin.
St. Edward’s needed someone to oversee all their events. As a part of the Admissions Department, Meghan coordinated fundraising events, open houses, academic events, and more. She was in charge of everyone from the caterers to the student volunteers. Remember, Meghan isn’t that much older than the college students at this point. And while her undiagnosed ASD and ADHD were hindrances in college, the way these two neurodivergencies overlap helped her in her new career. In fact, Meghan calls her ASD and her ADHD her “superpowers” and credits them with helping her career.
“With my ASD and my ADHD, I can do all the fine details, and I have all the extrasensory input, so I know exactly what’s happening everywhere,” Meghan said. “I love data. I love spreadsheets. I love goals. And that really works into what I do with my work.”
“With my ASD, I want stability and routines. With my ADHD, I take in and process all this information all the time and can figure things out on the fly,” Meghan said. “So, I’ve built routines for my business that give me that stability but can be changed because something always needs to be changed. Always.”
It was when she was still living in Austin that Meghan met the person who would become her best friend. Marie worked for a company that owned a racetrack where Meghan was working an event for the Austin Humane Society. Marie is now Chairman of the Board of what Meghan calls her Personal Board of Advisors.
“I talk to her all the time. She’s my platonic soulmate, my ride-or-die,” Meghan said.
“I live in a “we.” My life isn’t just me. I rely on so many people to help me get through the day. I clicked with Adrienne instantly. She’s a [licensed professional counselor], but she’s my brain. My parents, Marie, the Moxxie ladies, my BFFs… they all help me run my business, they help me remember to eat… I can’t live my life without them.”
photo credit: Omorfia Imagery
In 2016, Meghan upped stakes and moved up I-35 to Fort Worth to help a friend who was starting an event business. “She was on the sales side. I’m the person who executes things,” Meghan said. “I love the day of an event. I love getting down on the floor to measure out exactly where the tables and chairs will go. So, I quit my job in Austin, sold everything, including my cute little house that I had completely redone, and drove up to Fort Worth.”
Let’s face it, not all business partnerships work, and Meghan’s ended after eight months. But Meghan spent those eight months getting to know Fort Worth. “I was hustling so hard in those eight months,” Meghan remembered. “I was shaking hands and going to meetings and getting to know people. After we decided to split, I started handing out my own business cards, saying, ‘Hey, now I’m Moxxie Concepts. Here’s my number.’”
Which brings us to today. Whenever someone asks for recommendations for an event coordinator or planner in the Tanglewood Moms group on Facebook, Meghan and Moxxie are always at the top of the list of recommendations. Local nonprofits swear by her and her team, as do billion-dollar businesses, which is why she spent the summer of 2025 flying around the country, putting on those 32 different events in eight states over the course of five weeks that I mentioned at the beginning of this article.
“My brain was designing layouts and timelines while I was researching rental companies and florists and companies,” Meghan said. “I would fly out on the red-eye on Sunday, land Monday morning, pick up the rental truck, and go. For a while, I had a post office box in eight states so that I could mail everything I needed out on Saturday.”
Meghan grinned, “I parallel parked a Dodge Ram in San Francisco and in Washington, D.C. Even the cops were impressed. I worked with 218 different vendors, all sight unseen”
As the mother of two neurodivergent kiddos who is neurodivergent herself, I am, quite, frankly, amazed at all Meghan was able to do in those five weeks. But this is where her superpowers come into play.
“My theory is that if you think an event through from 32 different angles like my overactive brain always does, you have your B, C, D, E, and F plans ready in case something goes wrong. Which it always does. But you’re able to execute your backup plan on the fly without breaking a sweat.”
Casino Night
Photo courtesy of Moxxie Concepts
At its core, Moxxie Concepts has what Meghan calls the “Essential Eight.” These are the questions every client has to answer before every event.
- What is the goal of your event?
- Who is your target audience?
- How are you going to spread the word?
- What are the details and the logistics?
- How are you going to engage your guests?
- What are your guests going to take away from the event?
- What is the staffing situation?
- What is your follow-up?
It’s with these eight questions that the Moxxie team keeps the event focused and running smoothly so that their clients can enjoy their evening (or morning or lunch or whatever).
But people don’t comprehend the magnitude of the work that goes into coordinating events. They don’t understand that an event coordinator doesn’t just fluff a couple of tablecloths and check things off of a clipboard. Meghan and her team move tables and clean up spills and walk over 40,000 steps during the course of an event.
“I kinda want to punch people when they say, ‘You’re an event coordinator? So you just party for a living,’” Meghan grimaced. “Yes. That’s exactly what I do. I just sip my champagne and walk around with my clipboard. Never mind that I was changing in the back of my car while the first guests were arriving, and I’ve just scrubbed a toilet while wearing a pencil skirt and heels.”
Each event teaches the Moxxie team something they didn’t know. Meghan said, “There’s no right or wrong way to run a business. I mean, obviously there are some wrong ways. Don’t steal. Don’t cheat. Embezzlement is bad. But we learn from everything we do. We learn from failure, and being able to pick yourself up and keep moving is everything.
“I always joke that ‘I’m just the help,’” Meghan said. “I believe that. I’m not belittling myself. I don’t see the ripple effects of the event. I don’t see the conversations that happen at the tables. I don’t see the deals that are done and the funds that are raised. I make sure everything is in place so those things can happen. I’m the help.”
photo credit: Omorfia Imagery
