Architecting Emotion: The Launch of the Susan Wojcicki Foundation

When YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki died of lung cancer in August 2024 her family responded the way she would have: they built something. The Susan Wojcicki Foundation was established to accelerate early detection and prevention of lung cancer, and the Evening of Impact at the SF Masonic in San Francisco was its introduction to the world.

Having worked closely alongside Susan for years at Google and YouTube, our Chief Creative Officer, Chris Di Cesare, felt a profound responsibility to get this right. He guided the creative vision from brief to curtain call, understanding that a night with this much emotional weight required a fundamentally different approach to production.

To understand why the Evening of Impact resonated so deeply, you have to look at the intentional architecture behind it.

The room held 350 people: Silicon Valley tech leaders, world-class oncologists and digital creators with tens of millions of combined subscribers.

The brief was not simple. We had to introduce a foundation most people had never heard of. We had to translate complex science into something an audience could feel, not just understand. We had to honor a woman whose absence was still felt by many in the room. And, at the end of the night, we needed that room to donate to the mission.

We structured the evening in three distinct acts, in close collaboration with the Foundation's Chief Communications & Marketing Officer, Kelly Galvin, and her team. The goal was to build an immersive, multimedia narrative where data and artistry constantly spoke to one another.

Act I grounded the show in a sense of purpose by telling Susan’s story. Act II shifted into hope by introducing the science in a way that felt human and digestible to the audience. Act III was the pivot from inspiration to unified action, building to a performance of “Girl on Fire” by Alicia Keys that held the moment.

The design of the show was intentional: by the time we invited the audience to invest in this future, they weren't just educated, they were emotionally moved and given a clear reason to believe their contribution would save lives. The experience earned the partnership of the room.

Creative direction and show design are central to making a live experience like this work. The invisible architecture that decides what the audience is ready to feel at each moment and whether the moment to inspire generosity arrives at exactly the right time.

$15 million raised in a single night. First event. An amazing testament to what happens when a community unites behind a mission.

We hope we made Susan and her family proud.