Feature
Women in Tech. We launched Women
of Silicon Roundabout in London in
January 2016, five months after the
company was formed. It took 13 weeks
from launch to sell-out.
Women of Silicon Roundabout boasts
Google, eBay, Net-a Porter and American
Express among the participants. Did the
lack of history of the company and their
age work against them in bringing such
major brands on board? Patrick recalls
their first meeting with Facebook, three
weeks in: “We went to their offices in
Warren Street, I bought a suit before the
meeting, Michaela brought some heels
and Fred was at the print shop printing
brochures. We went in and pitched and
came out with a sponsorship deal for
our brand-new event. When potential
sponsors see speakers from Sky and
Amazon investing time in the event they
start to take us seriously. If you go into
something thinking – what if they say
no; what will they think about us; we’re
such a small company… the likelihood is
that you probably won’t close them.”
The biggest mistake in the early
years was to book venues that were
too small. The first event at America
Square conference centre in East
London in January 2016 had capacity
for just 350 delegates which quickly sold
out. They graduated through various
venues to ExCeL London for the 2018
Silicon Roundabout event and saw their
delegate numbers increase to 4,500 with
6,500 projected for 2019.
The international roll-out
The business has quickly become
international, with launches in
Amsterdam, Sydney, San Francisco,
Cape Town, Tel Aviv, Canada, Singapore,
Hong Kong and India and with Mexico
planned for 2020. Patrick explains
the strategy behind the geo-clones:
“We wanted to irreversibly change the
business landscape for women and that
needs to be done on an international
basis. The major driver is to get events
out before other people do them.”
Michaela points out that they are
continually asked to do events in other
countries: “We analyse online traffic
and social activity in a region and see if
there’s enough content appetite which
can translate into an event audience.”
Three people around a table has now
grown to a staff of 40 in serviced offices
in Kennington and, as the company has
scaled, they have brought in some older
wise heads but most of the staff are
still under 30. The more senior people
adapt well to the young environment.
“They have all the freedoms they’ve
ever wanted. There’s no glass ceiling
at Maddox Events there’s just a solid
concrete floor which is permanently
being raised,” Patrick explains.
What lies ahead?
Surely it’s a big ask to maintain this
level of growth – but apparently not to
this team. Patrick explains: “Almost
every major industry has a problem with
diversity, so we have launched Women
in construction, law and finance as well
as tech and then geo-cloned them. The
long-term strategy is to co-locate all
the events within each country and run
some very large Women in Business
“If we failed we’d fail quickly,
learn from it and move onto
something that we knew
would work” – Patrick Lewis
Festivals. As work life balance shifts we
want to introduce women’s music, art
and design into the events. There are
probably some barriers to achieving all
of this but we’re not aware of what they
might be.”
I ask each of the team for a piece of
advice for others who are thinking of
taking the plunge and starting their
own business. Fred: “Not taking a
risk is also a risk.” Patrick: “You have
to back your own creativity. Younger
people can often see business models
and revenue streams in ways that some
of the older generation can’t.”
Michaela has the last word: “If
you’re really good at doing something,
ask yourself why you’re doing it for
someone else.”
March — 49