Celeste Whitaker

Summary

I launched Fizz Marketing, an events management company, in 2000 and am the Founder of this dynamic organisation. Our aim is to deliver personalised, effective marketing and event solutions of the highest standard, and in such a way that we increase our customers Return on Investment and assist them to reach their strategic business objectives. My journey in the events industry started in 1991 at the Computer Faire, South Africa’s largest information and technology exhibition. At the time I was an office assistant but in 1994 was promoted to Service Assistant for all exhibitions in the TML Reed Portfolio. This position allowed me to grow my professional skills quickly and in 1994 I was promoted to Marketing Services Manager at TML Reed making me responsible for Corporate Marketing and all marketing initiatives related to exhibitions. By 1997 I had outgrown this role and was promoted to Operations Manager of Computer Faire which was a stepping stone to General Manager of Gauteng, Cape Town and KwaZulu Natal where I worked for the next 3 years, before launching my own business. The experience that I gained in those 10 years allowed me to confidently pursue my dream of creating an events management company that would truly become a partner for our customers. At the heart of this is the belief that in order to add true value to my customers my team would need to foster long term relationships that go beyond a single event and allow us to truly understand the overall business objectives for our clients organisations and marketing teams, and then translate those into effective event management. In order to fulfil this requirement I knew that I would need to empower and grow my teams ensuring they have consistent training and that as an organisation we have systems in place that allow our teams to take ownership of various aspects of the organisation. This has paid off in various ways, not least of which is our teams fast-tracked experience in Virtual Events. This forward thinking has ensured that our team was able to pivot our service offering when Covid-19 became a reality and to help our clients move to online events with confidence.