My Experience at Somerset House.

From 2009 - 2013 I worked in a senior role within the events team at Somerset House, London. As a commercial and experiential lead within one of the UK’s most prestigious cultural institutions, I oversaw high-profile public programming, luxury brand activations and launches for critically acclaimed exhibitions. 

Blended cultural storytelling with experiential event design, transforming venue hire space into immersive, sponsor-integrated live environments.

A REALLY IMPORTANT TIME OF MY CAREER

I was a central figure in curating and launching culturally significant, critically-acclaimed live events and exhibitions including Dior Illustrated; Tim Walker: Story Teller; Valentino: Master of Couture; and 50 Years of the Rolling Stones. I negotiated and closed corporate sponsorship for key public events including London Fashion Week; Tiffany & Co. for SKATE; Summer Series with American Express; and Film Four Summer Screen.

  • 2009

    Somerset House Commercial Team

    Spearheaded commercial hires and launched major exhibitions at The Courtauld Gallery, collaborating with curators, stakeholders, and committees. Led a team of sales and business development managers, event managers, producers, planners and freelancers to deliver a programme of complex, high profile events. 

  • 2011

    Expansion & Growth

    Introduced prestigious clients including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Nike, Universal Pictures, and PepsiCo. Developed a commercial strategy to maximise profit and reduce costs, working towards the wider reclaim-the-building plan of Somerset House Enterpreprises. 

  • 2012

    A New Place of Culture 

    A new, transformed events department  and a move away from standard corporate functions to high-end luxury events, increasing revenue
    by 80% and reducing costs by 90%. The successful delivery of Brazil House for the 2012 London Olympic Games and 100% ownership of grounds and tenancy land returned back to Somerset House Trust from longterm tennants including HMRC; the commercial efforts now used to develop and refurbish internal space for new cultrual and commercial projects. 

Brand Partnerships

INCREASING REVENUE BY MAXIMISING MOST VALUABLE EVENT SPACES

My role became hybrid between development and strategy, focusing on building key relationships with brands who shared a similar ethos with Somerset House. My key objective was to maximise all space across the venue and to open this space as a creative hub for exploration. I produced many events in the Fountain Courtyard including premieres for Universal Pictures, such as Fast & Furious. 

Introducing Experiential To Somerset House.

Day-to-Day

As a Producer

I cultivated my own role, really. Day-to-day my main focus was to develop valuable partnerships that served Somerset House, either culturally or commercially. This meant connecting with a wide range of brands and organisations across so many different sectors and working with a huge variety of people. No day was the same, yet the objective never changed. 

I was also responsible for the delivery of the projects I brought in, which excited me the most. I executed these to such a high level and transformed our departmental outputs, which was a constant day-to-day challenge. Shaping these things, fine-tuning and pushing for excellence became my vendetta. 

Using The Façade for Great Causes

GROWTH

I engineered an infrastructure project to digitalise the Fountain Courtyard and façade of building for projection mapping. This meant we were able to offer this new surface as an exciting prospect to hire and as a canvas for change-making projects. As project mapping was still in its infancy at the time, this was revolutionary and so impressive to witness. Blending 16th Century architecture with modern technology, especially when projecting the messages of great causes such as the EnoughIF campaign for Oxfam. 

I needed more than this great building allowed.

As my aspirations for bigger, more complex and highly creative campaigns increased, I outgrew the building. Somerset House gave me the springboard I needed to launch my own agency.  

    The Events Mill

    An agency that challenges conventions and promotes elevated creativity.

    Case Study

    My experience at Somerset House equipped me with the skills to produce events like this.

    Network

    Many contacts were made at Somerset House that I still call upon today within my creative practice.

MY FULL EXPERIENCE

MY CAREER

View my CV to view my full experience.

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