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Big Interview
GETTING FUTURE FIT
Lex Butler, chair of the Hotel Booking Agents Association (HBAA) and operations
director of Wolf & White, talks about her plan for the association’s future
ow did you get into the
events industry?
After huge emotional
failure during work
experience in our local veterinary
practice at 15 – which was my career
of choice since a small girl – I was
stuck on where to focus my energies
and new career aspirations. It was
right in front of me; growing up I was
already immersed in the industry,
with my mother running a successful
agency and me seeing, hearing and
experiencing second hand how
fabulous said industry was. I talked it
through with her and started work
experience during the summer at
MeetingsFare before heading to
Leeds Met University to study the
Event Management Degree.
How have your clients’ needs
changed in recent years, and how
do you stay ahead of the game to
ensure they get the best
experiences?
In our client base at Wolf & White,
it’s not so much their needs that
have changed, but their
expectations. Their industries are
getting more competitive, brands
want to remain unique, at the
forefront of innovation and always
be ‘the first’ to do something, deliver
a ‘never before seen’. We do a lot of
consumer events, so the needs
come from the consumer.
Moving on to your role at the HBAA,
how did you first get involved?
I’ve been aware of the HBAA since
my mother, Angie Mason, became
association chair 16 years ago. I
was lucky to grow up around
influencers who raised my
awareness of the industry, the
association and those in it.
I joined the events committee
temporarily about five years ago to
deliver production for the Annual
Kick Off & Dinner, where I got to
experience being part of the HBAA
team. It was at a time where Wolf &
White was still in its infancy, so I was
unable to commit the time to be a
dedicated member of a committee,
but last January I was able to apply
for the position of events chair. Over
the first six months of holding the
position I was approached by the
board to ask if I would be interested
in also applying for the vacancy of
vice chair, and was thrilled when my
application was successful.
How would you summarise your
first six months on the board?
It has been a whirlwind. Time flies by
in our industry and I can’t believe six
months has already passed. Since
joining the board we have achieved
so much, committing to taking time
out to be with each other for days at
a time (which is a huge show of
passion and commitment when we
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all have day jobs and are
volunteering our time) to deep dive
reviews of the association, to go
back to grassroots and look at where
we are now and where we want to be
in the future. We are launching the
results of our review and our future
initiatives at our 2020 Annual Kick
Off, so watch this space.
Trade associations are having to
evolve to stay relevant to their
members, what is the HBAA doing
to engage its members?
I couldn’t agree more. An association
should exist for its members and be
their voice, but also deliver and
support them in areas they highlight
as being needed. We need to be a
pillar of guiding light, experience,
knowledge and industry access for
our membership. We would become
stale and irrelevant if we did not
continuously review who we are,
what we offer and who we are doing
this for. We must keep our fingers on
the pulse and be at the front, never
playing catch up in the industry.
An example of a key event
programme on the HBAA calendar is
our Agency Engagement Meetings,
where agents come together to
discuss business and industry-
critical topics and share best
practice, and where we engage
expertise from external professionals
to support their knowledge.