Conference Event Manager Spotlight Transcript
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
Good day and hi everyone, and welcome to the CIA Omnigage Event Manager Spotlight Series. Over the course of the remainder of 2025 and into early 2026, CIA Omnigage is going to be hosting this, our Event Manager Spotlight series, where we’ll be spotlighting a Senior Event Manager in the hopes of learning a bit more about the person behing the professional you all know so well during your daily interactions. As we know, the CIA Omnigage event managers are the individuals who keep our operations running heare on a daily basis and assisting you, out customers, with your events each day. Today, we’ll be kicking off the series with Jenny O’Keefe. Jenny welcome to the CIA Omnigage Event Manager Spotlight series.
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
Thank you veru much.
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
So we’re going to start off with a really easy one here, Jenny and just first off, tell us how long have you been an event manager at CIA Omnigage?
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
So I’ve been with CIA Omnigage just over three years, April 22, so 3 1/2 years really.
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
Excellent. So if you were to guess how many events you’ve managed in your career at CIA Omnigage, how many do you think, and before you answer, I should let you know that we’ve had out friendly folks in IT extract the number of events you have managed, so we’ll share that with you following your guess.
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
Um, let me see. I would say around 1000, maybe 900, something like that.
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
Ok, I am glad you are a better event manager than you are a guesser. So you have hosted 2304 events here since April 2022.
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
Wow. Oh my gosh, that’s a lot.
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
I think that tells us that you are really enjoying what you;re doing, seeing that it only felt like 1000 when in fact it was twice that number.
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
Yes definitely, definitely.
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
So next question, I’d like to know if you could share with us something people, including your coworkers, don’t know about you.
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
Ok let me see. So I once swam with dolphins when I was staying in Marco Island in the Gulf of Mexico, just off the coast of Florida. It was incredible. They were wild dolphins. We were just on a boat and then we looked around and they were swimming right by us as we were passing through the mangroves. So we just kind of jumped in and swam with them. Just amazing and probably maybe another thing is that I speak Spanish. Some of them, some people do know that, some people don’t know as well.
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
Yeah, absolutely. It’s one of the many talents you bring to your role here as being one of our key bilingual operators, allowing us to kind of host events seamlessly, whether it’s in English or Spanish so very impressive and I was certainly pleased and surprised when I learned that you were a bilingual speaker and I’ve heard you interacting with our Spanish speaking customers and it’s really amazing how fluent you are.
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
Thank you.
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
So inevitably, when participants join a CIA Omnigage event, as we know, might be because they join early or the call starts a little past schedule. But in some case, our participants at one time or another will hear our hold music. And our hold music was once described by CIA customer as country elevator music. I don’t think that was intented to be a compliment. Our hold music, let’s just say, is at best neutural, but it’s not very well regarded. So my question, is as an experienced event manager, what would your ideal hold music be?
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
So yeah, I’ve got to say our hold mysic maybe needs to be a little bit more updated, a but more modern. So maybe something a but more relaxing or so that people, when they’re calling in, you know, they’re trying to get from one call to the next. They’re doing other things as well, so having some music that kind of fills them out a little bit. So something I really like a tune called Heat Waves by Glass Animals. It’s not too well known, but it’s a really nice tuns, so I think that would be really good.
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
That would sound like a definite improvement. So now that we have ideal hold music from Jenny, I’d like to now ask you if you could moderate a panel discussion with three or four guests, who would be your dream panel? They could be deceased or alive, fictional or real but who would be Jenny O’Keefe’s ideal fireside chat panel?
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
So I’d probably look to where my interests are. So if I’m being selfish about this, I’m a massive foodie, love to cook and love to watch cooking shows as well. So I’d have Gordon Ramsay as one of my guests and also being that he’s from Scotland there’s a tie in there. I also really love SNL and I really love Maya Rudolph. I think she’s amazing. She’s hilarious. She’s got a lot of experience and as a woman with all the things that she’s done and I’d also like to have Sir David Attenborough. He’s just one of my heroes, and I’ve watched pretty much every documentary that he’s done. So yeah, that would be my strange but ideal panel.
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
Yeah, definitely a diverse group, and I think the results of the discussion could get very interesting there. I supose my question for you would be, would Gordon behave himself?
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
I think he would, yeah. I think he knows when to sourt of, you know, put a lid on it. And I think when he’s out of the kitchen, he’s very professional. He does ham it up a bit for TV. So I think, yeah, I think h with the right audience, he knows how to behave, I’ve hope anyway.
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
Absolutely. Now sounds like a very interesting experience. So last and ahead of our interview, we asked you to select a favorite passage that we’re going to have you read. Not that our customers aren’t already very familiar with your voice, but we thought it would be a new way of hearing you and learning a bit more about you. We said it could be a poem, song, lyrics, a famous speech with your bext event manager voice. So at this time Jenny, I’d like to ask you to share your passage with us.
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
Thank you. So this is from a Peter Gbriel song called Don’t Give Up and it means a lot to me.
In this proud land, we grew up strong. We wanted all along. I was taught to fight, taught to win. I never thought I could fail. No fight left, or so it seems. I am a man who dreams have all deserted. I’ve changed my face. I’ve changed my name. But no one wants you when you lose. Don’t give up becuase you have firends. Don’t give up. You’ve not beaten yet. Don’t give up. I know you can make it fit.
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
That’s wonderful, Jenny. Thank you so much. Beautifully spoken and also some very beautiful words there from an extreme iconic talent in Peter Gabriel. So thank you so much for joining us here on the Event Manager Spotlight series, Jenny, and we look forward to having you on our calls and hosting many more calls in the future.
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
Thank you so much.