Feature
had complimentary skill sets and were
in the right places – Hong Kong and
London – to make this work. Duckworth
had learnt from his previous attempt
at running his own business that to be
successful you can’t do it on your own.
How does the team dynamic work?
“Pablo and I provide the commercial
view and it’s key that Pablo probably has
the best connections in mining in any
events company,” Duckworth explains.
“Charlie handles the marketing whilst
Leo as the conference producer adds
gravitas and thinks things out in a
different way. Charlie and Leo tend to
reign in the more maverick ideas that
Pablo and I have.”
Challenges to the growth
Recruitment of good people is
the common challenge for all event
organisers and 121 is no different.
“The biggest challenge has been
getting the right calibre of people
and getting them quickly enough.
Recruitment has lagged event growth
and the first sales person didn’t join
until year three. With hindsight
we should have turbocharged the
recruitment process. We cancelled our
London tech event after the first edition
and used the venue slot for another
mining event which brought in four
times as much revenue. We didn’t have
enough people to do both,” Duckworth
recalls. “Having product specialists
earlier would have quickened our pace in
the other sectors – we’re only recruiting
for these people now.”
Does the company recruit event
specialists?
“We don’t tend to recruit people with
big exhibition experience because they
have to unlearn a lot of what they’ve
done before” Duckworth explains. “We
don’t want 60,000 people at our events
– we want 376, but it has to be the right
376 and we don’t sell square metres.
Most of the people who join come from
outside the sector – it’s easier for them
to understand what we do as they’re
learning it for the first time. Our two top
salespeople used to sell jewellery and
rugby kits.”
I asked Duckworth if their team
approach had changed as the company
has grown.
“We don’t have a hierarchical
structure with an MD,” he explains.
“The four of us still agree the big
decisions by committee. However, we’ve
grown to a team of 42 in London, Hong
Kong, Australia and Canada and so I’ve
taken on a more corporate role to ensure
that the culture of the business develops
in the right way and the needs of our
growing team are taken care of.”
And has their attitude to risk
changed?
“Early on our decisions were a
reaction to what was happening at the
time. Our cleverest move, which was
driven by our waiting lists and which
turbo-charged our growth, was to
double up on events and hold them in
London, New York and Hong Kong twice
a year. Now we have to think through
decisions more carefully and how they
will affect both the staff and our existing
products,” Duckworth explains. “There
is more strategic thinking, but we stop
short of the incessant re-budgeting that
is a product of the larger organisers.”
What lies ahead, surely it’s going to be
hard to sustain the rate of growth?
“Not at all” argues Duckworth. “We’ve
had enormous growth over the last two
years and we can maintain good growth
with our existing events. Currently
90 per cent of our business is in the
mining sector but we’re speeding up the
development of the other sectors which
are much larger – primarily property
- and through cloning, turning them
into a series of events covering North
America Europe and Asia.”
June — 19