Five commercial projects across global media, financial services and business development. The brief, the approach, the obstacles and the outcomes.
The FT Mining Summit is one of the Financial Times' flagship sectoral events, bringing together senior executives, investors and policymakers from across the global mining industry. My brief was to build and convert a commercial pipeline of corporate sponsors and event partners within a defined window, targeting decision-makers at mining companies, investment firms and professional services organisations with a direct stake in the sector. The event had an established audience and reputation, but commercial targets were ambitious and the sales window was compressed.
Rather than working from a generic outreach list, I mapped the commercial landscape of the global mining sector first. I identified which companies were actively investing in mining assets, which were managing reputational exposure around ESG commitments, and which professional services firms were competing for mandates in the space. That segmentation shaped everything. I targeted decision-makers who had a business reason to be in the room, not just people with relevant job titles. My outreach was personalised to each company's current commercial priorities, referencing recent announcements, deals or regulatory developments specific to their situation. On discovery calls I led with questions about their objectives before I ever mentioned the event, which meant my proposals felt like solutions rather than sales pitches.
The mining sector operates on long decision cycles and tight procurement processes. Getting to the right person was straightforward enough. Getting that person's organisation to commit within the commercial window was the real challenge. Many conversations stalled at the internal approval stage, particularly with larger listed companies where budget sign-off required multiple layers of authorisation. I learned to identify and engage the internal champion early, arm them with the business case they needed to get internal approval, and stay close to the process without becoming noise. The relationships I built during those extended cycles often converted later than expected but at higher value than the initial conversation suggested.
The summit delivered strong attendance and commercial outcomes. The segmentation-led outreach approach I used on this project became the template I applied to subsequent FT events, reducing the time spent on unqualified conversations and increasing conversion rates on meaningful opportunities.
The hydrogen economy is one of the most contested and capital-intensive sectors in the energy transition space. The FT Hydrogen Summit brings together the senior executives, government officials, investors and technology developers shaping its direction. My brief was to drive commercial partnerships for the summit, targeting organisations across the hydrogen value chain, from producers and infrastructure developers to financial institutions financing the sector's growth.
Hydrogen is a sector where the commercial conversation is inseparable from the policy and regulatory environment. I spent time understanding the funding landscape before I made a single outreach call. Which government programmes were active, which companies had recently received grants or investment, which projects were approaching final investment decision. That knowledge made my outreach credible and my conversations substantive. I positioned the summit not as an event to attend but as a commercial platform for organisations navigating a critical moment in the sector. That reframe landed differently with prospects than a standard event sales pitch and opened conversations that would otherwise have gone nowhere.
The hydrogen sector is characterised by an enormous amount of activity and an enormous amount of noise. Many organisations were enthusiastic about the space but uncertain about the right moment to make commercial commitments. Distinguishing between genuine prospects and window shoppers required discipline. I built a simple qualification framework that helped me spend my time on conversations with real commercial intent, which meant I closed fewer initial meetings but converted a higher proportion of them into actual partnerships.
The summit attracted senior participation from across the hydrogen value chain. Several relationships built during this project converted into ongoing commercial conversations beyond the event itself, which is the outcome that matters most in a sector with long commercial cycles.
The FT Energy Transition Strategies Summit at Convene 22 Bishopsgate, London, is one of the FT's most strategically important annual events, bringing together the senior leaders from energy companies, financial institutions and government bodies navigating the shift to net zero. My brief was to build commercial partnerships for the summit, working across a broad stakeholder universe that included energy majors, utilities, infrastructure investors, professional services firms and technology providers operating at the intersection of energy and sustainability.
The energy transition space is crowded with events, which meant the commercial conversation had to be differentiated immediately. I led with the FT's editorial credibility and the seniority of the audience rather than the event format, because those were the things that genuinely separated this summit from alternatives. My targeting was built around organisations with a strategic narrative to land at a C-suite audience, whether that was a technology company repositioning itself as an energy transition enabler, an investment firm demonstrating its ESG credentials, or an energy major managing stakeholder perceptions around its transition commitments. That targeting logic made the commercial proposition feel relevant rather than opportunistic.
Energy transition is a topic that attracts enormous internal debate in large organisations. Whether and how to participate in public forums is often a contested decision involving communications, legal, sustainability and commercial teams simultaneously. I had to learn to navigate that internal complexity from the outside, building relationships with multiple internal stakeholders rather than relying on a single point of contact to carry the conversation internally. That required patience and a different kind of relationship management than a straightforward procurement-led sale.
This was the most complex commercial environment I worked in at the FT, and the most rewarding. The multi-stakeholder navigation skills I developed here directly shaped how I approach complex deal structures in my current role.
The FT Commodities Global Summit in Lausanne is the Financial Times' premier event for the global commodities trading community, bringing together traders, investors, analysts and producers across energy, metals and agriculture. It is an international event with an audience that operates at the highest levels of global trade. My brief was to drive commercial partnerships for the summit, working across a genuinely global prospect universe that spanned multiple continents and industries.
Working across time zones and cultural contexts required a different approach to relationship building than a domestically focused role. I adapted my communication style, meeting cadence and proposal framing to the norms of different markets, particularly when engaging with trading houses and commodity producers in regions where relationship development moves at a different pace than in London. I prioritised depth over volume, choosing to invest significant time in a smaller number of high-value conversations rather than maintaining a large but shallow pipeline. This approach suited the nature of commodities market relationships, where trust and credibility carry more weight than persistence.
Lausanne is a premium event in a premium location, which means the commercial proposition carries a correspondingly premium price point. Justifying that value to procurement teams and finance functions that had not attended the event before was a consistent challenge. I developed a return-on-investment narrative that spoke in the specific commercial language of each prospect type, whether that was deal flow for traders, mandate origination for advisers or regulatory engagement for producers. Translating a qualitative brand value into a concrete commercial case was the skill I developed most on this project.
Working on a truly international event was one of the most formative commercial experiences of my career so far. It taught me how to adapt without losing credibility and how to build relationships across cultural and commercial contexts that are genuinely different from each other.
GetSet UK works at the intersection of employment support and employer engagement, connecting individuals looking for work with businesses that need talent. When I joined, the employer partnership side of the operation needed structure. My brief was to build a scalable B2B outreach and partnership programme from the ground up, identifying the right employer segments, developing the commercial proposition for each, and building the pipeline infrastructure that would turn outreach into closed partnerships at a consistent rate.
Starting from scratch meant I could build the right way rather than inheriting someone else's assumptions. I began with market mapping, identifying which employer segments had the greatest hiring volume, the most persistent talent gaps and the strongest alignment with the candidate profiles GetSet UK could deliver. From that analysis I built a segmented outreach strategy with distinct propositions for each segment. I used AI tools to accelerate research and personalisation at scale, which allowed me to maintain a high volume of targeted outreach without sacrificing the quality that converts conversations into partnerships. I also built a structured qualification process so that every conversation entering the pipeline had a clear next step and a defined decision timeline.
Building from zero means there is no social proof to lean on in the early conversations. Every employer I spoke to was being asked to trust a relationship and a proposition that was brand new. I overcame this by being precise and specific rather than broadly impressive in my outreach, focusing on the particular hiring challenges of each prospect rather than the general capabilities of the organisation. That specificity built credibility faster than any case study or reference could have at that stage. The harder challenge was building the internal processes around the pipeline simultaneously, managing CRM, forecasting and cross-functional coordination while also carrying a full commercial workload.
This is the project I am most proud of because it required building something real from nothing. The programme continues to grow and the framework I built in the first few months is still the foundation it operates on today.