HR & Event | Eventum Premo

HR & Event

Alexander Shumovich has been organizing business events in Russia and other countries for over 12 years. At present - Director, Managing Partner of Eventum,

Questions:

How often this happens, it happened quite by accident. I bought a course at the Latvian Business School (LBS) under the Open Learning program at Queen's University of Manchester. I studied well, because at that time I did not work anywhere, LBS offered me to work with them. A year later, we organized the first banking conference in the Baltics, then the HR conference and others. This is a very interesting business, I worked at LBS for 9 years. In 2003, with the dream of an ideal event agency, I opened Eventum. I wanted more freedom and other activities.

One of the leaders of Walt Disney's amusement park, Robert Janey, when asked what an event was, gave the following definition: “Events are something that is different from ordinary life.” It seems to me - he is deeply right. Moreover, the rights are not only for the participants in the events, but also for the organizers. Each event should not be approached as a routine, but strive to do the best that is possible for such an event, give it 110%. And then the participants will feel this your attitude. They will notice by the thoughtfulness of each action, by attention to details, trifles.

This year Russia is chairing the G8 for the first time. As part of the Russian Chairmanship, many interstate meetings and consultations are held. In particular, on June 8-10, 2006, a meeting of G8 Finance Ministers was held in St. Petersburg. Eventum was selected as the operator of this meeting. For us it was an unusual project. All economic and organizational issues of the preparation of the meeting fell into our area of ​​responsibility. Holding such an event is a unique experience for any company.

We spent 2 months working without sleep on coffee and adrenaline. And on June 10, the Ministers of Finance of Russia, the USA, Great Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Italy, Canada, Austria, China, South Korea, Nigeria, Australia, Brazil, the EU Commissioner, heads of international financial organizations - International, met in the ancient palace Monetary Fund, World Bank, International Energy Agency.

Just imagine, in one room there were people who were responsible (in a sense) for 60-70 percent of world money ... Yes, events, this is really something that differs from ordinary life ...

We had no right to make a single mistake. And everything turned out as it should. In the evening, we watched news on TV, stories were broadcast on all the channels about the event we organized, and we knew exactly how great the work of such different people was, the tension of mental and physical forces was behind the organization of each such meeting. Now I dream of hosting the Olympics or World Championships. Seriously.

I can’t say yet that the organization of events has become an industry on its own. In a mature industry, standards, understandable leading market players, ratings, professional education, literature and associations should emerge. Events in this regard look weak. Books began to be published only this year. A professional association with a code of conduct, quality standards, a platform for communication has not yet been created ...

About the same thing happened in Russia with personnel management about 8-10 years ago. Event organizers follow this path. Every year it is noticeably felt that Clients are becoming more sophisticated, more experienced, more demanding. We speak the same language more and more. This means that the organizers are becoming more professional, and the industry - significant and respected. Organization of events is one of the three most popular marketing tools. Events have a great future.

My father is a Ukrainian, from the Dnipropetrovsk region. In the city of Ordzhonikidze, my grandmother lives. And I was born and raised in Riga, I speak Russian, English and Latvian. I love coffee, classical music and read a lot. I prefer to spend my free time in the company of my wife, raising my daughter and son. I feel like an entrepreneur in spirit, I love complex tasks and elegant solutions. I am a member of the international association ISES and AmCham. Since 2004 I have been teaching Event Management, reading seminars on credit management and PR. Among the events at different times organized by our team were: a meeting of G8 finance ministers, conferences of Svyazinvest holding, the Russian Marketing Association, etc.

Take care of your best people. This is the most invaluable resource the company has.

 

HR и Event