Lauren Hayward

Director

Hard working, forward thinking, and efficient, Lauren has quickly worked her way from Event Assistant to Account Manager, 2iC to Director of the company. Lauren Hayward has been instrumental to the success of Forum Group over the past 10 years and the step into joint ownership has been a natural progression in her career. Account managing high profile clients and overseeing the team’s execution of a multitude of projects has proven that for Lauren, no challenge is out of reach. With a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Marketing and a Diploma of Event Management graduating with Distinction, Lauren was also notably awarded the 2013 Australian Event Awards Young Achiever of the Year, the Meetings and Events Australia (MEA) Future Leader Award for 2012 and MEA’s Event Manager of the Year in 2013. She has been an active member of MEA having chaired and participated in the NSW Networking Sub-Committee for almost 4 years and was a member of the MEA NSW Branch Committee for almost 2 years. Lauren is also a member of the Professional Conference Organisers Association.

 

Events industry recognitions:

• Winner – Meetings and Events Australia – Event Manager of the Year (2013)
• Winner – Australian Event Awards Young Achiever of the Year (2013)
• Winner – Meetings and Events Australia – NSW YMEA Future Leader Award (2012)
• Driving force behind submissions for company award wins in the category of Event Management organisation and meetings management (less than 8 employees) from 2009 – 2017

Key skills:

• Business strategy
• Financial management
• Key account management
• Event management strategy
• On-site event production and management
• Staff management
• Team mentoring

 

Contact Lauren:

The project: Key Account management of a high profile tier 1 IT company

Being a Key Account Manager entails participating in strategic quarterly planning meetings, project managing all aspects of events and event marketing, as well as managing client budgets. It also means always being on call and ready to respond in the event that new projects with tight turn-around times arise. In just the first 12 months of account management Lauren ensured the success of over 100 events including:

• 34 technical workshop events
• 28 lunch and learn events
• 5 CXO roundtables
• 11 partner events
• 8 regional events
• 6 customer breakfast seminar events
• 5 customer networking events
• 6 client internal events

What Lauren brought to the project…

Lauren’s project management skills, professionalism and forward-thinking, make her an ideal Account Manager for this client. Problem solving and fast turnarounds are Lauren’s forte. Managing a multitude of projects, she keeps on top of the evolving event and marketing landscape and best practices.

Project management including finance management and regular reporting
Venue and supplier management
Vendor management via POE (proof of execution)
Monitoring multiple marketing communications associated with each event

 

Snapshot of one national technical workshop series:

Demand for the event was so high that additional sessions were scheduled resulting in 184% attendance attainment
Extremely low drop-out rate of 22% (typically experience 50% drop-out for unpaid events)
4.72 out of 5 for attendee satisfaction: the highest ever recorded by the client for an event series
Achieved 178% pipeline attainment from sales leads derived from event