Earlier this month I caught up with Sophie on Zoom.  Sophie is an event and media expert with extensive physical and digital event experience, gained over 22 years working across leading global brands, in multiple regions, in many industry sectors, and across many varying platforms.

Sophie is also a brand builder. She has built brands, developed communities, and launched event businesses in multiple sectors. Having done her corporate journey with Reed Exhibitions, IIR, Informa and Ascential she ventured into starting her own business.

Sophie is candid about the fact that her previous role was affected when Covid hit in 2020, due to the impact Covid had on the events industry. Here is what makes Sophie’s story interesting. Instead of moping, she quickly garnered the support of industry friends and ex-colleagues and launched ‘Virtual Events Institute’ as a Co-Founder.

Today, VEI brings the global events community together to inspire, innovate and learn how to produce exceptional digital and hybrid events. Through training, events, awards, community, and industry insight, VEI is creating best practices, education, and the next generation of event professionals.

By 2027, the global virtual events industry is set to grow by 23.2%, forecasting revenue of US$ 404 Billion by 2027.  VEI is creating a global community for the industry to come together to learn, educate, inspire, and network as the event industry transforms for 2021 and beyond. VEI focuses on key learning, education, and connections around the digitization of events.

The training is on-demand providing a learning experience tailored to client’s needs, at their own pace, and with 17 leading global subject matter experts it provides detailed knowledge on all aspects of virtual and hybrid events. Sophie’s plans include offering her certification programs in various languages like Mandarin, Portuguese, Spanish in order to reach a larger audience and be truly global, plus they also plan to develop new training modules focusing on new topics. VEI will reflect the changing needs of the global events industry and this will of course mean providing key knowledge on the blend of physical and digital and the omnichannel and 365 approach to events.

In Sophie’s words, “Hybrid is the way forward.”

I think Sophie is spot on!

Penned by Sharad Agarwal