Susan MacTavish Best is an American business woman who is the founder and CEO of Posthoc,[1] an organization that hosts salon gatherings, and works as an advisor to CEOs and founders.[2] She is also the founder of The Salon Host,[3] a 21st Century educational guide to hosting salons and analog in-person events.[4] She was previously the founder of Best Public Relations[5] and Living MacTavish, a lifestyle guide. She has become known[6] for hosting salon-style gatherings[7][8] in Los Angeles, DC, London, San Francisco, New York and Svalbard.[9]
MacTavish Best is a vocal proponent[10] of people spending time together in real life in an analog style[11] despite her decades working in Silicon Valley.
MacTavish Best created and edited POSTHOC, one of the first online guides to San Francisco in the 90's, after studying at night school at San Francisco State University’s Multimedia Center.[21] Years later, she relaunched Posthoc as an organisation and community that hosts salons worldwide.
MacTavish Best founded Best Public Relations, a boutique Silicon Valley PR agency, in 1998. The company focused on working with technology companies and represented dozens of long-term clients such as Craigslist[22] for over 15 years,[23][24]Esurance, Klout, Founders Fund, Smugmug, Olivia Travel, Quid,[25]YouNoodle, VentureBeat, MainStreet, and Playfish through to their acquisition by Electronic Arts.[26] She was also an executive producer for five seasons of craigslistTV, a documentary TV series spawned by craigslist.[27][28] While representing Best Public Relations, MacTavish Best featured as a boss portraying herself on the unscripted BBC Children reality show "Beat the Boss USA" which aired in 2009.[29]
In November 2013, MacTavish Best opened up a pop-up shop called "Living MacTavish" SoHo, New York City, where she made the contents of her life for sale. In the evening, she hosted informal salons, concerts and discussions while serving a homemade dinner for the attendees.[30]
In 2016, Calm launched their Sleep Stories app at a salon at MacTavish Best's home.[35] In 2017, Calm was named Apple's App of the Year.[36] In November 2023, Saturday Night Live produced a skit with Timothée Chalamet recording a Calm app sleep story that did not go as planned.[37]
In 2018 MacTavish Best was named one of America's Top 100 Party Hosts by The Salonniere website for the second year in a row.[38]
MacTavish Best has been recognised for her interior design style[39] and fashion.[40]
Susan MacTavish Best in her salon library, 2025
During Covid, MacTavish Best hosted dozens of digital salons on topics from economics to geopolitics to hosting a weekly mental health salon with Zak Williams. She also launched The Salon Host to inspire others to gather people in their community[41] as the pandemic ended, and she has been credited for inspiring a new 21st Century trend[42] of salon-hosting.[43][44]
Personal life
MacTavish Best spends time in Los Angeles’ Arts District, New York City[45] and the remote far Northern California coast.[46] In 2009, she was badly injured in a fire accident at her San Francisco apartment and she is a burn survivor.[47]
In 2023 MacTavish Best was signed as a model[48] to Grey Model Agency.[49]
