As often heard from many individuals in B2B events, Adam was completely unaware of the industry, and in fact found out about conference production not long after leaving university:<\/p>\n
“My exposure to conference production was that my friend’s older brother went to the same university as I did, he was a couple of years above me, he did the same degree, and the same Masters. I started seeing on social media that he was travelling a little bit and seemed to be doing well for himself. I asked his brother, who’s still a really good friend, and he said “oh he does conference production”, and I was like, “what on earth is that?”.”<\/p>\n
From there, Adam began applying for conference producer roles, with the idea that if someone with his same interests and academic background was succeeding, he may also find success within the field. “If I hadn’t learned of it through my friend’s brother’s career path, I don’t know if I would have stumbled on it through generic job boards at the time.” It’s a familiar story across B2B events, where the industry often finds people before people find it.<\/p>\n
At aged 23, Adam found his first conference producer role at Corinium Global Intelligence, a data and analytics focused events business founded in 2013. Adam was one of the first to be brought into the business, where he produced launch events in defence, insurance and data analytics. What appealed to Adam wasn’t the size of the company, it was the chance to matter within it:<\/p>\n
“I liked the idea of being somewhere where it wasn’t as big, where you weren’t one of a number, and you could drive something from the ground up.”<\/p>\n
Corinium grew very quickly during its first year, scaling to a point of unsustainability, leading both Adam and the founder to reevaluate the company strategy:<\/p>\n
“The company grew quickly but unsustainably, and had deviated from its founding vision of being a fully remote company dedicated to great events in one domain. So the founder and I reevaluated the approach. It was more a big refocus than a case of starting again.”<\/p>\n
Although the company soon found its footing, Adam was still the only producer, so, without formal training, he ultimately became a manager, initially of an entry-level conference producer, and a more experienced freelance producer based in Australia:<\/p>\n
“I used to have a 7am meeting every Thursday with the freelancer. She was so much more experienced than me, and when we first started, she was like, what on earth is going on here, I’m reporting to a 24-year-old in the UK. I would ask her for things because that was the only way I knew to look at the work, but if you compared what she’d done against what I actually needed, all the content was there, it just wasn’t presented in a way I was familiar with.”<\/p>\n
Adam summarised it simply: “Always be aware of what you’re asking your direct reports for, and how and why. Is it something you need, or something you want because that’s how you’d do it?”<\/p>\n
As Corinium grew, so did Adam, progressing from producer to manager, to Head of Conference Production, and eventually Managing Director of their Americas and Europe division within two years. The step up arrived without much warning. As Adam described it, it felt like being told he was the closest thing the business had to an MD, and that he’d be stepping into the role. Despite Adam’s proven resilience, he stepped into the role feeling uncertain: “I didn’t really have the first clue about how to be an MD.”<\/p>\n
This feeling of being thrown in without a playbook is one that many managers and senior leaders in the industry can relate to. Adam pointed to a wider gap behind it:<\/p>\n
“I don’t think our industry is great at training people when they first start, and I also don’t think we’re good at training managers when they first step in.”<\/p>\n
It’s a gap that doesn’t disappear with experience either, it can still catch people out, particularly when they’re stepping into a managerial role for the first time.<\/p>\n
After five years at Corinium, with the majority of it spent working remotely, Adam sought a new experience, joining WBR as a Divisional Director of Conference Production. “I left after about five years. I felt like I needed a change.” His time at WBR proved a valuable next step, sharpening his experience managing both people and events.<\/p>\n
When the pandemic hit in 2020, an undeniably difficult period for the wider industry, Adam found himself back at Corinium, stepping straight into a leadership gap. “I almost became de facto head of production overnight.” Remarkably, Corinium faced little to no adjustment period, having already been built as a remote business.<\/p>\n
As the industry began to recover, Adam moved into freelancing, and found it reignited his conference producer spark after years spent managing cross-functional teams rather than producing. During his time as a freelancer, Adam was asked to produce a retail event: “I always quite liked the retail side of things.”<\/p>\n
Coincidentally with Adam’s love of retail events, a new opportunity presented itself: Global Head of Content, Special Projects at Shoptalk. Although Adam was undoubtedly excited about the opportunity, the title itself brought along some hesitations:<\/p>\n
“I sat there and looked at the job title and thought, well, that sounds cool, head of special projects, but I don’t know what it means. It doesn’t sound like the sort of thing that would make sense, on paper, for somebody who was an MD two years ago.”<\/p>\n
However, after taking some time to think about his decision, Adam came to the conclusion that the role was worth overcoming his precautions: “What’s there to lose? It’s an incredible event portfolio and opportunity, and I could go back to freelancing if it doesn’t work, but also I would get to have a good crack at it.”<\/p>\n
Once joining Shoptalk, Adam quickly progressed to VP, Head of Content – Europe, and when asked what advice he’d offer to those caught up on job titles, Adam offered this:<\/p>\n
“Sometimes you have to look beyond the job title. You have to look beyond what feels like a logical next step on paper. You can see a job title and then see the spec, and think, well, that doesn’t sound like an event director, or that sounds like a head of sales or whatever it might be. So really digging down into what that looks like is quite important.”<\/p>\n
Now, after being with Shoptalk for almost three years, Adam has just finished Shoptalk Europe 2026. Shoptalk is famed for its scale and success, with its flagship event in Vegas drawing over 10,000 attendees each year. When asked what sets Shoptalk apart from other large scale events, Adam defined three pillars of success.<\/p>\n
Firstly, Adam set out the value of content, not just the volume of sessions, but the seniority of speakers:<\/p>\n
“We have really large, really senior speaker faculties in our track stages, they’re still senior VP level and above or equivalent. On our main stage, we get some pretty big hitters on there.”<\/p>\n
With both the volume and seniority of speakers, it is much more likely that attendees will always find something of value, regardless of if they initially came for a specific bit of content.<\/p>\n
Adam was careful to draw a distinction between being primarily a trade show, and having a quality show floor. Shoptalk doesn’t position itself as a trade show, but it still runs a genuinely large exhibition alongside everything else. It’s the pillar for attendees who want to see the technology and the buzz directly rather than through a session. “We’re not a trade show, but we do have a really large exhibition.”<\/p>\n
The third, and arguably most important, pillar set out by Adam is Shoptalk’s meetup programme, a platform based system that matches attendees with other attendees and with sponsors, based on mutual interest, rather than leaving networking to chance:<\/p>\n
“Having the right people in the room and not leaving it to chance that they will meet, regardless of size and scale, is the big, big difference maker.”<\/p>\n
This intentional philosophy had tangible success at this year’s event, with Adam sharing that they had 25,000 meetings over the three days.<\/p>\n
When asked what Shoptalk gets right that other events often miss, Adam highlighted the importance of the experience above all else. The Shoptalk Europe experience includes food and beverage fully covered, activations on the show floor, a swag store, a band, an end of show party, and dinners, all treated as part of the actual product rather than an afterthought: “People like having a nice time, and people like doing nice things, and I don’t think our industry is amazing at recognising that sometimes.”<\/p>\n
Although Shoptalk Europe has proved to be a hit amongst both delegates and sponsors, Adam shared that he typically has little time to witness and enjoy the event he spends twelve months building, as he’s always busy behind the scenes. This year, however, Adam stepped onto the main stage himself: “Opening the show for the first time, I’ve never done that before, which was fun, and interviewing Nadine Graf at Estee Lauder was great.”<\/p>\n
Adam has seen a lot of growth in his career, from his own rapid rise at Corinium, to the developing success of Shoptalk, and as emphasised by Adam, that growth will continue: “Even though we’ve been running now since ’22, we’re only scratching the surface of how large the show can be, and our reputation.”<\/p>\n
Reflecting on how far he’s come, Adam put it simply: “I’ve never, ever worked on events of that scale. The largest event I’d worked on was, like, 400 or 500 people, and Shoptalk, Vegas is 10,000, Europe’s 4.5, so, you know, a different world.”<\/p>\n
Visit Jackson Barnes Recruitment\u2019s website\u00a0www.jbrecruitment.co.uk<\/a>\u00a0to learn more about how we connect top commercial talent with world-class media and events organisations.<\/p>\n About Jackson Barnes Recruitment<\/strong><\/p>\n Jackson Barnes Recruitment delivers international recruitment solutions within the events, media, and publishing sectors. Jackson Barnes recruits Graduate to MD level in the following positions:<\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0Researcher<\/a><\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0Conference producer<\/a><\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0Event Marketing<\/a><\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0Sales \u2013 delegate, sponsorship & Business Development<\/a><\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0Event Manager<\/a><\/p>\n