EVENTS CONNECT CONFERENCE:
MANCHESTER 2024
CONFERENCE SPEAKERS
Martin Green
World Class Creative Leader
Inspirational leader managing diverse workforce, stakeholders and building outstanding internal and external communications.
Managing Director of Eurovision, Liverpool 2023 on Behalf of Ukraine - over seeing entire delivery of the most successful Eurovision ever.
Chief Creative Officer for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth games - over seeing opening and closing ceremonies, Queens Baton Relay and culture programme for the worlds 4th largest sporting event. Also for Unboxed: Creativity in the UK, a £120m ground breaking celebration of creativity featuring ten commissions bring together science, technology, engineering, arts and maths
Director of Hull UK City of Culture 2017, a ground-breaking 365 day world class arts festival that reinvigorated Hull and engaged its residents. Led a team of 100 raising a budget of £35 million
As Head of Ceremonies for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games recruited and led team of 500 that delivered the Welcome Ceremonies, Victory Ceremonies, Torch Relays and Opening and Closing Ceremonies of The Games. Budget of £150 million.
Matt Lynch
Managing Director of MoonShot
Matt’s experience with the Walt Disney Company early in his career began to shape his vision for how powerful a guest experience could be when you have an engaged and purpose driven front line team. He leveraged that experience to serve front liners in some amazing organizations both in the United States and the United Kingdom.
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Matt served in Major League Baseball for the Atlanta Braves from 2007-2013 as Director of Guest Services, opened The College Football Hall of Fame in 2014 as Vice President, Fan Experience and relocated to the United Kingdom as Head of Guest Services at iconic Wembley Stadium from 2014-2016. Matt was on the opening team of Disney’s fourth theme park, Animal Kingdom in 1998 and opened Disney’s London Production of The Lion King in 1999.
Matt is now the managing director at MoonShot, an organisation he founded in 2016 to support organisations in creating awesome experiences at the world’s greatest events.
Mission Highlights:
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Opening Team: Disney's Fourth Orlando Theme Park - Animal Kingdom - 1998
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Opening Team: Disney's London Theatre Production of The Lion King - 1999-2002
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Director of Guest Services - The Atlanta Braves - 2007-2013
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Opening Team: Vice President, Fan Experience - The College Football Hall of Fame - 2013-2014
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Head of Guest Services - Wembley National Stadium Limited - 2014-2016
Shaun Hinds
Chief Executive of Manchester Central
Shaun leads the team at Manchester Central in its purpose to connect people, ideas and business through meaningful event experiences.
Shaun is passionate about the contribution that Manchester Central makes to the city’s economy and works to ensure the venue sits at the heart of the local business community whilst maintaining its standing as a leading international convention centre.
As Chair of the Association of Event Venues (AEV) Shaun lobbies for greater recognition for the UK events industry and the role that it plays in underpinning national economic performance.
Prior to joining Manchester Central, Shaun led international operations at BridgeStreet Global Hospitality and has more than 25 years’ experience working across hospitality, property and business service sectors.
Caroline Rogers
Major Events Specialist and Sports Director - Senior Events Manager at Co-Op Live
Caroline is a passionate and dedicated event professional with 17 years’ experience of working in a variety of senior management and consultancy roles in the operational planning and delivery of world class sporting events. This has included Wimbledon Tennis Championships, Football World Cup, Commonwealth Games, Rugby League World Cup, Olympic Games and Cycling World Championships. She also comes with Board experience having worked for two years as a Non-Executive Director for GB Taekwondo where her wealth of event management experience was used to provide professional expertise, guidance and support and an impartial perspective in the shaping and implementing of the Olympic sport’s key event strategies.
Caroline is personally really interested in sustainability, accessibility, and legacy and ensuring that they remain at the forefront of event planning and inform all key decision making.
She is also an active sportswoman and loves to run, cycle and do anything outdoorsy!
Gill Tee
Co Founder black Deer Festival/ MD entertee events
Gill started her music career at Capital Radio, where her role was to promote ‘on air’, music events and festivals for the leading UK promoters of the time. She worked her way through the ranks becoming the Head of Entertainment at the station. During this period Gill was charged with producing, the first ever 100,000 capacity Party in the Park at Hyde Park in 1998.
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This is where Gill fell in love with live events. Having employed a production company to work with her on the project, and watching a world build from a green field site, it became something she felt she was destined to do, so she took a massive leap of faith, and left Capital to start her own events business, entertee.
During the 25 years of entertee, Gill has produced many high-profile events, including working with the Royal Parks, producing events for many prestigious brands, producing a series of regional Party in the Parks for the Capital Radio group all over the country. Many events later, she was asked to produce a new festival in Kent, the Hop Farm Festival, for Vince Power, where she learned first-hand the ups and downs of producing a festival from scratch. The Hop Farm was headlined by some incredible world class artists including Prince’s first and only UK festival appearance.
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In 2006 Gill co-founded entertee Hire after identifying a gap in the market for a quality fencing solution that was affordable for smaller events. This award-winning business now supplies high quality fencing and ground protection to the festival industry and is one of the leading suppliers in the UK.
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Gill has now come full circle from promoting festivals in her radio days for other promoters, to becoming a promoter and festival co-founder herself. Using all the experience gained from her many years in the industry, she has applied this to the multi award winning Black Deer, a festival of Americana. The festival takes place at Eridge Estate near Tunbridge Wells, Kent. 2024 will be the fifth year the festival will have taken place.