My Working Life
Emily
Challis
The portfolio event
manager – niche
events at Fresh
Montgomery and two-
time EN 30 Under 30
member on workplace
equality, growing up
in the industry and the
tangibility of events
I was born and grew up in Bristol.
My family are small and very close, I have one
younger sister who has always been my best
friend and grew up with my mum and dad
just north of Bristol. Mum and dad were very
relaxed and supportive parents and filled me
with self-belief and instilled in me confidence
that I could do anything I set my mind to.
Going home to see mum and dad is always such
a relaxing time and I love being back in Bristol
to spend time with them.
Mum was an estate agent for most of my
childhood and I think having a working mum
was imperative to my view on the importance
of women’s career development and how
to balance a family and work. When I was
in second year of university, mum had quit
agency and started university to retrain as
a social worker and start a new career from
scratch, which was pretty inspirational!
Dad worked in events and managed Cardiff
International Arena while I was growing up,
so was in events for most of my childhood.
He’s now a motorbike journalist and travels the
world riding bikes and writing about it.
The weirdest customer email I have received
was working on BBC Countryfile Live when
a potential visitor asked me if he could bring
his pet albino crow to the event, to sit on his
shoulder! Unsurprisingly this wasn’t covered
by our FAQs so I checked with our H&S team
and the good news was that he could.
I started stewarding at Cardiff International
Arena with dad when I was about sixteen
and just loved events from the beginning. I
watched dad being the manager of a big team
and thought that managing events of that scale
looked brilliant, I loved getting seeing concerts
every night and being exposed to so much live
music was exhilarating.
While I was freelancing at Fresh Montgomery
in 2014 I met Miranda Martin who bought me
into SME London as a freelancer later that
year and my first day at SME was working on
the Independent Hotel Show, which was sold
to Fresh Montgomery in 2017.
Depending on the publication date of this issue
and when you’re reading it, I could be getting
married as you read this! I’m getting married on
2 August in Bath and I’m very excited.
I love the tangibility of events; for a whole
year you work on something behind the
scenes but at the end you get this tangible end
product. I enjoy the element of performance,
I can always be found at the entrance of the
show when the doors open on day one, seeing
people pour into the event is my favourite
part of the day onsite. I also love lists and
spreadsheets so this job is perfect for me!
I am an ardent feminist, so my primary agenda
is always gender equality in the workplace.
I’m lucky that at Fresh Montgomery we have
lots of women in leadership positions with
Lori Hoinkes at the helm and Soraya Gadelrab
and Miranda Martin as portfolio directors. I
know however, that this is not the case across
the industry, and I think it’s so important that
women entering a workplace see women at the
top of their game who’ve smashed the glass
ceiling for them. It’s essential that as you move
up the career ladder you stay focused on helping
women coming up below you to progress, so
there are always women ready for the top jobs.
August — 13