With September seeing us turn on the lights earlier, we turn this month’s spotlight to one of our long-standing colleagues, Karen Milligan who’s been at the heart of BiP sales for a decade!
I joined BiP almost ten years ago as an exhibition sales executive and was promoted into the Senior sales role, followed by the Sales manager role and my current role is Head of Exhibition and Event Sales.
Meetings tend to take up a lot of my time whether that’s event scoping meetings, project meetings, meetings with the sales team, SMT meetings or the most important ones – prospective client TEAMS meetings.
I would like it if BiP adopted an early finish Friday as a permanent feature. Slightly longer working hours Mon – Thursday and a business wide early finish every Friday would be great. I think this would support a stronger work life balance overall.
If I was answering this a few years ago during a global lockdown and no face-to-face interactions being permitted, it would have warranted a very different answer – thank goodness that’s a thing of the past😊
The biggest challenge I find in my role just now comes down to me. Time management and being organised is not my best attribute (to put it mildly) so juggling everything and prioritising different tasks tends to be challenging at times.
I feel very fortunate to work with some amazing people across BiP and there really is a sense of willing everyone to succeed therefore, even in the crazy busy periods (which is always, when it comes to events!), I know that my own team, Laura A’s team and generally the wider business is always happy to lend a hand and help out to make sure what needs done, gets done.
I love working in event sales and being a people manager in this industry is brilliant. The buzz of the chase and the satisfaction of achievement as well as the psychology behind what makes people tick all add to just some of the things I love about my job.
The main answer here must be everyone that works at BiP.
I do also love how we work in a constantly changing market. Every week there is something new to learn and BiP are very good at making sure everyone in the business can be as knowledgeable as possible across our market sectors.
Being Head of Exhibition & Event Sales, the answer must be = Lots of event sales 😊
Moving house lol. I have moved house many, many, times since joining BiP and I do think buying and selling houses is quite exciting but it’s a very expensive hobby, so my plan now is to look for a slightly cheaper hobby.
I haven’t been anywhere strange that I can think of, but I do like to travel. So, recently I have been trying to visit one or two new countries each year. I am only 10% of the way around the world’s list of countries so far.
I like to think I am a positive and friendly person.
- Coffee or tea – Tea
- Book or film – Film
- Cat or dog – Dog
- Hot or cold – Hot
- Salty or sweet – Sweet
- Tattooed or not – Tattooed
- Night out or night in – Both ?!
- Email or meeting – Meeting
- Teams calls: video call or audio? – Video
- Eating: al-desko, break room or break out altogether – Desk (but this is a bad habit that I am trying to stop!)
- Mountain or beach – Beach