After eight years with the same events team, Nerhys Dineen, EA and leadership team operational manager at Ipsen, explains why she wants a working partnership rather than a friendship – and shares what she’d tell any EA deciding whether to stay or switch.
Internal events are essential for communicating business updates, sharing key messages and boosting morale. Doing them well takes time, expertise and resources, and when EAs are already stretched, this is where a specialist agency steps in.
Why I brought in a partner
Three years into my role at Ipsen, in 2018, the company had grown and managing internal events on my own had become too big a task on top of my primary role.
I come from an events background so I have the knowledge. But I needed a partner who could take the pressure off, wear multiple hats and challenge me in a mutually respectful way.
I chose people I already knew and respected. We still call the first conference we delivered together “the best family holiday ever”.
When the pandemic hit, they helped with everything from virtual broadcasts to fruit box and care package deliveries for our team. When they co-founded The Bite Project in 2021, it was a no-brainer to move with them. They’ve delivered our conferences ever since.
What keeps it working
We’ve always had very open communication, regular work-in-progress updates, reverse briefs, detailed budgets and strong post-event debriefs that focus on what worked, what didn’t and what we’ll do differently next time. I share our internal challenges openly so we can workshop solutions together.
Our conferences typically have eight to 10 different events within them, from dinners and team building to community days and content sessions. A visual progress document, which goes well beyond the typical spreadsheet, lets me see where everything is at and what the agency needs from us at every stage.
The relationship has had to flex, too. Different general managers have valued events differently, so some years we’ve worked on a range of projects and other years the work has reduced as budgets changed. Whatever the size of the job, they’ve stayed with us, as we have with them.
Stay or switch?
People sometimes stay with an agency because it’s easy and the agency holds the IP. Those shouldn’t be the reasons, and they can make a partner complacent. Ask instead how the partner is adding value and making your life easier, not harder.
Aim for a working partnership rather than a friendship. With a friendship you might worry about upsetting someone, whereas a partnership encourages both sides to challenge one another, all with the goal of a better attendee experience.
If I see something, I’ll say it, and they’ll respectfully challenge me too. We talk it through and work out the best solution for the event.
The mistake I see most
EAs create an event around their own preferences and forget the end user. I always say to start with what you want people to feel during the event and take away from it, then work backwards.
That’s hard for an agency to do if you have other ideas in mind. Lean on their expertise, and challenge them too. It’s about knowing where your swim lanes are.
It also helps to understand how agencies work. Do they bill by the hour or charge a day rate?
The more organised you are with your delegate list and event parameters, the more efficiently the agency can use its time. Vendors aren’t mind readers, and timely, correct information affects your budget’s bottom line.
What it looks like in practice
Recently we headed to New Zealand for site inspections. The agency presented some great options but there were a few things we (travelling with our learning and development manager) wanted to do differently.
So we walked the streets of Christchurch developing solutions, calling venues and cold calling together in some places. We found our opening session venue and mapped out the week’s conference agenda on site, which saved us about 20 hours when we got home.
This kind of collaborative thinking is why I keep going back.