Sophie Goad Email & Phone Number

Dorking, England, United Kingdom

London

Working closely with the Conference Chairman, responsibilities included;• Conducting in-depth research with retail CEO’s from across the globe, both over the phone, face-to-face and in focus groups• Writing the market leading conference agenda attracting preeminent retail leaders and visionary speakers• Writing commercially engaging copy and marketing collateral, including blog posts and reports• Devising innovative formats and shaping the strategic direction of the World Retail Congress series• Project managed the launch of ‘Retail futures challenge’ a student competition with participants from across the globe which gained great gravitas and attracted substantial sponsorship revenues• Identifying potential sponsors and working with the commercial team to secure sponsorship revenues• Managed the logistics of the speaker faculty of over 100 speakers from across the globe• Researched and devised the international expansion strategy of the World Retail Congress series and produced and launched the World Retail Congress Asia Pacific, which attracted over 300 participants in its first year

Managing the strategic direction of the event portfolio to generate maximum profitability• Gaining an in-depth knowledge of the retail market to identify potential events• Establishing and maintaining strong relationships with senior professionals in the retail industry• Validating new conference topics and growing existing events• Financial planning, budgeting and forecasting• Developing and maintaining strong relationships with the brand teams and internal stakeholders• Managing a team of three conference producers; validating and generating topics, writing topic briefs, managing research and programme delivery within a defined conference cycle• Developing strong internal relationships with marketing, sponsorship and logistics to ensure delivery of the schedule of events• I participated in EMAP’s ‘Management Foundation’ training course and managed my team through major organisational change.

• Overseeing the strategic direction of a portfolio of 30 events per annum • Conducting extensive research and analysis of the legal industry to produce a schedule of innovative and commercially viable events• Communicating strategy to internal stakeholders and gaining their buy-in• Writing commercially engaging conference agendas and marketing collateral for market leading events• Managing budgets and the forward schedule of events to protect lead times and ensure profitability of the event portfolio• Working closely with the Editorial team to ensure market relevance of the portfolio and leverage of key industry relationships• Establishing and maintaining strong relationships with senior professionals in the legal business sector