I am excited to share that this week is the 2nd anniversary of McVeigh Global Meetings and Events— when Fourth Wall Events, Worldtek Events and McVeigh Associates joined forces. It’s been an incredible two years for our company, and me personally. I want to thank our loyal clients who have supported us through this. You trust us with creating the attendee experiences that achieve your goals, and we truly cherish that trust. Together, we’ve done some incredible things! At our two-year anniversary, I’m spending a lot of time looking at where we are today—as a company and a society.
We believe that our people are our heart and soul. Our employees are the sole reason for our success. There’s a magic created by our people coming together, all dedicated to supporting our clients. I feel honored and privileged to lead this team. We have some of the best people in the business—they’re talented and experienced. A mentor once told me, “You cannot teach nice”. That is so true. With our team, we don’t need to. The MGME family is made up of kind, warm wonderful people. Every day, I learn something new from our team. We draw from a wide variety of perspective and experience. In any situation, I can call any number of people to vet an idea, give me feedback, or to help me solve a problem.
In some ways, we are a “40-year-old startup.” Unlike established companies who tend to be stale, rigid, and stuck in their ways, we’re a 2-year-old company—a toddler! MGME is adaptive, flexible, and creative—soaking up the world around us like a sponge. Like a toddler, we’re growing quickly. We can change course in an instant. We don’t know everything yet (based on my children, that starts at 10 years old). However, we have some incredibly experienced people, veterans within the Meeting and Events industry. We balance our youthful curiosity with experience, best practices and proven processes. We’re still figuring it all out—and will for the rest of our lives. If we keep this attitude throughout our careers, we’ll continually improve, continually innovate, and continually bring more value to our clients.
MGME started from a very focused vision. A detailed plan mapped out how we’d respond to the market and our path for growth as a company. It should be no great surprise, we’re not on plan for 2020. I’m a planner.
I consider multiple possibilities and develop contingencies for them. My dad LOVES to tell me, “Always have options.” I’m not ashamed to admit, I didn’t foresee this possibility. None of our contingency plans included a global pandemic or all live events screeching to a halt. I didn’t imagine a world where I couldn’t bring my team together in person. What we did plan—the need to build a team that feels like a family. A team of strong leaders, all moving in the same direction, laser-focused on solving our client’s problems. And we’re surviving, on our way to thriving! To meet our client’s needs, we’ve developed new service offerings, including ConnectUp Speaker Meetings, Elite Patient Services, Virtual Tradeshows, and more, that will be necessary long after COVID is. We are innovating, even now!
It’s also a time of necessary cultural transition. We live in a world where prejudice still deprives many of equal treatment and opportunity. MGME believes in the value of diversity—diversity of race, sexuality, gender and age. Our team is strong because of its diversity. I’m saddened it takes so many tragedies to get us, as a society, to pay attention and take action. Now that we are, I’m extremely hopeful that we can come together and begin a healing process—that our society leaders establish laws to protect everyone. To our MGME family—thank you for bringing your whole self to your work every day. Thank you for adding richness and diversity to my life and to the success of our company.
I’m ready for a world full of live events. I’m ready to get back to normal. Our world, and how we experience it, will inevitably be much different.However, because of our team’s strength and our client’s support, we will adapt and continue to grow. Looking forward to our next anniversary and the many after, I cannot help but smile.
Jeff Guberman
Chief Executive Officer
McVeigh Global Meetings and Events