Conference Event Manager Spotlight Transcript
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
Hello everyone, and welcome to the CIA Omnigage Event Manager Spotlight. My name is Tom Bermingham, and with me today we have our Senior Event Manager, Jenny O’Keeffe, who will be the first in our series for the Event Manager Spotlight. Jenny, welcome.
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
Thank you veru much.
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
It’s great to have you here. So we just have a list of questions we’d like to run through with you to introduce you to our customers more than they even know you. So we’ll just go to the top to bottom here and looking forward to learning more about you. So let’s kick off with an easy one here, Jenny how long have you been an event manager at CIA Omnigage?
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
I’ve been with CIA Omnigage just over three years, April 22.
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
Excellent. Okay, so if you were to guess how many events you’ve managed in your career at CIA Omnigage, how many would you think? And before you answer, I should let you know that we’ve had our friendly folks in IT extract the exact number, so we’l share that with you after your guess.
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
I would say maybe around 1,000, maybe like 900, something like that.
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
You just be loving what you do because you have actually hosted 2,304 events here since April 2022.
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
Oh my gosh.
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
I was concerened that you were going to say way more than our actual number, in which case I’d say, uh oh. So I think that’s a good sign.
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
Yes absolutely.
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
So with that also, I’d like to know, share with us something people, including your coworkers, don’t know about you.
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
Let me see, so I once swam with dolphins at Marco island, just off the coast of Florida and it was incredible. We’re on a boat and they kind of, they were swimming by the mangroves. We just jumped in and swam with them and they were amazing. So that was just incredible. And maybe as well that I speak Spanish. Some do know, but some don’t know that.
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
Yes. One of the one of the great advantages that your bring to your role as our a bilingual operator, equally fluent in English and Spanish. So, inevitably, when participants join a CIA Omnigage event, as we know, it might be because they join early or the call starts past schedule start time, but participants joining one of our events will hear our hold music. And our hold music was once described by a CIA customer as country-elevator music. So I would say at this time. Our hold music, let’s just say, while it’s very neutral, it wouldn’t be ver well regarded. So the question to you as an experienced event manager, what would be your ideal hold music for events that you host?
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
So I’ve got to say our hold music, I find it needs to be maybe a little bit modern. I think we’ve got to kind of make a change for the modern world maybe. So something a but more relaxing. A lot of these people calling in, they’re you know trying to get from one call to the next. They’re doing other things as well as being on the call. So having some music that’s relaxing a little bit. So kind of chill out for us. I would go with Heatwaves by Glass Animals. It’s a nice kind of chilled and got little bits of slightly faster tempo as well, but it’s a really nice one.
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
Excellet. I know anything would be a huge upgrade, but that sounds like it would be a really great choice. If you could moderate a panel discussion with three or four guests, who would be your drea, panel? And they could be deceased or alive, fictional or real, but the Jenny O’Keeffe’s ideal fireside chat panel, who would they be?
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
So I’d probably look to where my kind of interests are, if I’m being selfish about this. So I’m a massive foodie and I would have Gordon Ramsay as one of my guests, also that he is from Scotland, so that’s some tie in there. I also, I love SNL and i love Maya Rudolph. I’ve watched so much of what she’s done and she’s hilarious, but she’s also got a lot of experience as a woman and all the things that she’s done. So I think that would be really good. And I’d also love Sir David Attenborough because he’s one of my heroes, and I’ve also pretty much watched every documentary he’s ever done. And yeah, that would be my ideal panel.
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
So do you think Gordon Ramsay would behave himself during the panel?
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
Oh, he would. Yeah. He knows when to put a lid on it there. And I think when he’s out of the kitchen, he’s very much kind of a professional as well. So when he hams it up for TV anyway.
Thomas Bermigham (Moderator):
Excellent, Well, thank you. That sounds like it would be very interesting. And if we somehow in the course of your career here, managed to get those together, we know you’re doing to be the manager assign to that event. So last and ahead of this interview, we asked you to select a favorite passage that we’re going to ask you to read. Not that our customers aren’t already very familiar with your voice, but we thought it woule be a new way of kind of hearing you and learning a bit more about you. We said it could be a poem, song lyrics, a famous speech with your best event manager voice. So at this time, Jenny, we’d like to ask you to share your passage with our audience.
Jenny O’Keeffe (Senior Event Manager):
Thank you. This is from a Peter Gabriel 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 whose 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. Because you have friends. 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. Thank you so much, Jenny. And as we would expect nothing less, very well presented. And that was definitely the best event manager voice. So thank you so much, Jenny, for joining us here on our CIA Omnigage Event Manager Spotlight. It was great to interact with you and learn more about you through these questions and looking forward to more interactions in the future. Thank you so much.