Celebrating Rachel Curson | IWD
For International Women's Day 2022, we decided to celebrate successful women in our business, get to know them and promote their achievements both inside and outside of the workplace.
Can you give a summary of your job at Midwich?
The clue's in the title really, as the Events Manager, I organise, manage and host events for the Midwich Group. The variety of the role is huge one week we could be organising a trade stand and the following week working on a staff engagement event. If I had to choose my favourite type of event to work on it would have to be our own trade events or hospitality and networking, they're fun to organise and everyone is almost guaranteed to have a good time - everyone loves to be wined and dined!
How long have you worked at Midwich?
I've worked at Midwich for 13 years. I think it was in 2014, that I moved over to a full-time events role. Prior to that, my role had some elements of events in there, but it was certainly more focused on marketing admin.
What's made you stick around at Midwich for so long?
It's like a little work family here at Midwich. You spend such a huge proportion of your life working that it's really important that you take joy from what you do. It's not always going to be easy, but I think that you should be happy in what you do and I do love the people I work with and the events that we create.
What work achievement are you most proud of?
It's got to be Tech Xposed. It has grown so much over the years and where it stands in the market now is something I am really proud of.
Barnes (Christina Barnes, Event Executive) also makes me really proud, she has grown and developed over the years, which is in no way all down to me, but I like to think I have helped.
What's your least favourite type of event to organise?
I don't think I would do my job if I didn't like events. There are certain parts of my role that I prefer over others but I've been doing this for a long time so there is obviously something about it that keeps me coming back for more!
If I had to choose something it would be seminar focussed events. I'm personally not big on speaker sessions and with such a wide range of technology and market information available, it can be difficult to cover topics that will engage with larger audiences. I believe that our people set us aside from the competition and events offer us a great platform for industry engagement, so that’s what we try to achieve.
What is the most challenging part of your job?
This would have to be managing the events calendar! With so many group companies, industry events and networking opportunities it can be difficult to squeeze it all in. Given the circumstances of the last two years and with the world now starting to resemble some normality again, it feels like the demand for getting in front of people and events has never been higher. We love a challenge though, so we’re doing our best to manage expectations and where relevant bring companies and technologies together to make each event as worthwhile as possible.
The Pandemic hit at the start of 2020 and affected events all across the globe, what were your thoughts during that time?
From an events perspective, it was awful. Obviously, everything ground to a halt and we didn't know how long events would be on hold. Luckily, I've been with the business for long enough that I have skill sets in other areas and I was able to pick up and help the team and get back to work in other marketing roles. It’s definitely made me feel a lot more grateful to be back in my events role and determined to put on our best events yet for 2022!
How do you think events will change after the pandemic?
The pandemic had a massive effect on the events industry, there are companies that we used to work with that don't trade anymore. I’m hopeful that now the demand for events is returning that we’ll be able to support some of these companies.
From a consumer perspective, I think it's stressed the importance of face-to-face interaction, networking and everything that events are. We do get the opportunity to showcase some amazing tech, UK first showings as well as exclusive and exciting things at our events, which is fantastic, but I think if you reached out to our reseller base and our vendors, I would say that one of the main reasons to attend our events is to meet with people from the industry and network.
Where do you see our events growing and changing in the future?
We will always work towards bringing the industry closer together, something that we will continue to work on throughout 2022. Networking aside, I think there is more of a focus and desire for training events, especially with our growing offering from Mi Support and Mi Services. This style of events will be a lot easier now that we have a purpose-built facility to house product training sessions and hands-on demos at Innovation House. Over the next 6 months I think we can expect to see more training, demos, showcase days, reseller days and more based at our Bracknell facility.
International Women's Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity. Significant activity is witnessed worldwide as groups come together to celebrate women's achievements or rally for women's equality.
International Women's Day has occurred for well over a century with the first gathering held in 1911. The campaign theme for International Women's Day 2022 is #BreakTheBias. Whether deliberate or unconscious, bias makes it difficult for women to move ahead. Knowing that bias exists isn't enough. Action is needed to level the playing field.
