COVER FEATURE
When Lou Kiwanuka accepted her Lifetime Achievement Award on stage at this summer ’ s EN Supplier Awards , she was open about the mistakes she ’ d made in the past . These mistakes , she says , inspired her to launch the Ops Nest in 2020 .
“ Why do we require people to make mistakes for them to learn ?” says Kiwanuka , looking back to when the Ops Nest community was formed at the start of the pandemic . “ There should be a base level of knowledge and learning in our industry that means that the basics don ’ t need to be made into mistakes .”
Three years and 180 members later , Kiwanuka has guided the Ops Nest through the event industry ’ s most uncertain period . She says the hangover of the pandemic remains , but the support she has received from those at the lower levels of the events industry pyramid has helped the Nest thrive .
“ Have I felt supported ? I felt supported from suppliers . At the time I didn ’ t notice it , but in hindsight , our industry doesn ’ t have a plan for failure . It ’ s a very high-risk , volatile space .
“ Contractors see the pain and risks that organisers take day in and day out . If I look towards the contracting community , I generally feel supported . They have a realistic view of the events industry – they know that some shows succeed and some fail . They ’ re at the coalface of that success and failure .”
Kiwanuka , who has recently taken on the Ops Nest role full-time , is the
A golden opportunity to learn from ops fails
Ops Nest founder Lou Kiwanuka sits down with Joe Gallop to discuss all things operations , including supply chain challenges , cost increases and resource shortages . She explains how the role of an ops person has dramatically changed over the years and how the industry should learn to embrace mistakes
former managing director of The Shaper Group and former chair and board member at the Event Supplier and Services Association ( ESSA ).
She adds : “ When you look at it from the top of the industry , we don ’ t embrace our failures . There were a lot of companies that didn ’ t make it out of Covid , but you wouldn ’ t necessarily see that , because they ’ re not publicised and it ’ s not overt . There ’ s usually very little publicity about an event that fails .
“ If we had a plan and a learning mechanism around
14 — Winter