In this episode…

We hear from two impresarios of flagship marketing festivals – Matt Scheckner, Global CEO of Stillwell partners, the  producer of Ad Week Europe, and Phil Thomas, Chief Executive Officer and President Ascential Events and Chairman of Cannes Lions. They talk about how the evolution of event business models and  the pressures of delivering value to an audience while pleasing sponsors.

We also learn how they deal with crisis in the moment, the guests that most delighted them and why working with rapper T.I. was a painful experience.

About the guests:

Matt Scheckner is Global CEO of New York city based boutique consultancy Stillwell Partners and Executive Director of Advertising Week and Advertising Week Europe

Stillwell is the producer of Advertising Week, the world’s largest advertising / marketing / media industry summit. The Week takes place in New York City, London, Tokyo, Mexico City, Sydney and Johannesburg.

From 2006–2008, Matt served as Consigliere at Yahoo!, where he produced the very first digital Upfront, “Broadband on Broadway” in 2007 and managed the corporation’s relationships with Madison Avenue. For more than a decade Matt owned and ran Empire Sports & Entertainment, a New York City-based marketing and strategic consulting firm.

Phil Thomas Chief Executive Officer and President of Ascential Events & Chairman of Cannes Lions at Ascential.

He served as the Chief Executive Officer of Lions Festivals at Ascential Group Limited for a decade and has held a number of titles at Ascential Group since 1990, including Managing Director of EMAP Australia, FHM Worldwide and EMAP Media, where he held overall responsibility for the management of titles such as Shots, Screen International and Broadcast.

He began his career as a journalist, working on newspapers and magazines before moving into publishing.