My Working Life
Jet Li and the West Indian cricket team at the
2015 Cricket World Cup.
I turned up in London, spoke to a couple of
recruiters and luckily the first job I was offered
resulted in getting hired by Clarion.
Clarion needed some admin assistance after
DSEI 2015 and fortunately they hired me. Once
I proved that I was capable of opening 5,000
return to sender envelopes while the rest of
the team were on-site at Twickenham, I got
made a more permanent fixture and moved
onto the VIP/Defence Engagement team
working across our whole portfolio. I’m now
the VIP delegation manager; reporting into our
head of defence engagement, coordinating our
VIP programme from invitation to registration
to on-site management, and even have two
staff working under me.
Ben
Smit
EN learns more about
Clarion’s DSEI VIP
delegation manager,
who won Best
Newcomer at the 2018
EN Awards and is a
member of the EN 30
Under 30 class of 2018
I love the social side of the events industry; it’s
like one big crazy family! I also love the feeling
of being on-site and seeing what you’ve worked
so hard on for a year or two come to fruition.
I was born in Wellington, New Zealand and
grew up there for my whole childhood.
The dynamic in our family was always pretty
relaxed. My brother and I were usually game
for most activities, so my parents were quite
active in taking us out to keep us entertained.
My dad was an economist for the Reserve Bank
of New Zealand and other banks. My mum
has worked as a civil servant since graduating,
most recently as a senior data analyst for the
Ministry of Education.
The biggest topic that needs addressing in the
industry is talent retention. Sounds like an
odd topic to point out as a 27-year-old but the
churn that I have witnessed in my short three
years in the industry seems both unsustainable
(another big issue) and unproductive.
Fridays usually start with a little session
down the King’s Arms with the Clarion lot.
In summer I’m usually up early on a Saturday
morning to watch the All Blacks game and
then Sunday is clearly roast time, no matter
what Anglophone country you’re from.
I was generally hard working at school,
although probably could’ve put a bit more
effort into studying come exam time, and was
always busy with sport throughout the week.
I played football, hockey, cricket, badminton,
basketball throughout my school life. My last holiday was back home to New Zealand
over Christmas. I went home for almost a
month to see family and show my girlfriend
what New Zealand is all about.
My first job beyond the classic post run
was with Diabetes NZ administering the
distribution of their information pamphlets. DSEI is my favourite event that I work on at
Clarion. The scale of the show is unbelievable
and the engagement I get to have with both
Government and MODs is always exciting and
keeps you on your toes.
My job prior to arriving in the UK was a
driving charter buses in Wellington. I got to
drive some really cool people including actor
I’ve broken my left arm twice and have both
New Zealand and Dutch passports. EN
April — 19