Susanne Carpenter left Sweden in 1992 to pursue a career in the events industry, and has been on the road ever since. She currently heads up Carpe Diem Event Management Pty Ltd, and tells mice.net how her overseas experiences have shaped the way she approaches her clients.
Q: How did you get into the events industry?
A: When I was growing up I’d always take part in all the organising committees, getting into projects like organising my school’s 40th year anniversary celebrations. I was 18 when I landed my first paying job – PR at hotel, golf and country club, Bandama in Spain, where I organised all hotel activities. The hotel owner would send me off to other countries during the summer to do marketing with next to no budget to bring more guests to the hotel. I travelled around some 30 golf clubs and tour operators to “present” – my first experiences of “getting the message across”. Since then my career has involved anything from being a tour guide in Tunisia and developing a new golf resort in Spain, to marketing/yield management programs for hotels in southern Europe and strategic sponsorship investment consultancy in New York and London. Event management has always been a clear red thread throughout my career and life. Ever since I joined International Management Group (IMG), one of the largest event companies in the world, in 2000 I have solely focused on event management and strategy. I worked for them in Stockholm, London and New York. I then started Carpe Diem in Sydney in 2005.
Q: What experiences have you gained from working in the industry across various countries around the world?
A: Working in different countries has given me an understanding of cultural differences and how to tailor and adapt products accordingly. I believe it’s made me tougher as a person, and has given me an enormous amount of contacts, languages, hands-on experience and new ideas. As it’s important to experience any business from both sides of the table, it’s also important to work with the many personalities and cultures around the table.
Q: Looking at the events industries in Sweden and Australia, how would you compare the two?
A: Well, one similarity between Australia and Sweden is definitely the local feel. Due to their geographical location, both countries tend to have a local budget and do their own thing on a domestic level. The Australian culture is very outdoorsy, offering a great climate where people generally entertain outside their home, making events and entertainment a way of life here. That’s not always the case with Sweden.
Q: Having built up your connections over the past 15 years, you must have quite a variety of clients on your database?
A: You’re right! I have contacts throughout the US, Europe, Africa and Australia. Over the past 15 years I’ve built up connections with large clients, running large projects, doing lots of work and lots of mingling. Suppliers are built up through time and I always take my time to meet and try out suppliers to ensure I will be able to deliver top quality to my clients.
Q: What sort of clients do you have?
A: All sorts really. I’ve worked on events for a number of high profile clients including the King and Queen of Sweden, the crown princess Victoria of Sweden, and several Nobel Peace Prize winners such as Kofi Annan. I’ve worked with not-for-profit organisations and big commercial sponsors, like Cisco Systems and KPMG – and working with the two together has improved my skills at leveraging “two different worlds” successfully, particularly when you consider that a not-for-profit client’s main focus is often content and strategy to deliver their message without reflecting an image of spending money.
Q: When you decided to start up your own business, you chose London as the location for your first office. What prompted this move?
A: Prior to starting the business, I had married Brendan, a banker from Sydney who was living in London at the time. We thought it may take a while until we could move to Australia, so I started Carpe Diem up in London. As soon as the business was opened, the opportunity came up to move to Australia, so I closed the business, moved to Sydney and started Carpe Diem here. And this has been a fantastic place to settle down!
Q: Do you have plans to expand your business into other countries?
A: I would love to incorporate my global experience and contacts in one way or another. At the moment my main focus is to develop Carpe Diem in Sydney, and then see what the future holds for me.
Q: What do you see as the biggest concerns for event planners these days?
A: One hurdle in this industry is seeing an increased corporate awareness in entertainment/marketing spends. We tend to focus on producing strategic events to reach objectives connecting all elements of corporate communication, including PR, integrated branding, sponsorship, and cross-marketing activities. This helps us raise the awareness in corporate clients as to the importance of allocating budgets to entertainment and event marketing.
Q: How have things changed during your time in the events industry?
A: Things have changed dramatically! In the last 15 years the industry has gone from a somewhat unknown sector and occupation to a very fashionable one with event management degree programs available in most countries. Within the corporate world you were once quite special if you could offer your clients tickets to big events, but only a few years later everyone was doing the same and clients would start to expect this sort of treatment. I think there’s been an increased focus on quality and market research when it comes to meeting clients’ expectations and objectives with events. We now make it a focus to create an event strategy for every client to integrate their branding and bring out their message in the most efficient way through their event.
Q: Do you find being multilingual has given you a unique edge that your competition may not be able to match?
A: Not in Australia, but definitely in Europe where being multilingual is almost a necessity and in the US where it is considered to be a great asset.
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