I have always been a strong believer in the power of networking. Meeting new faces, sharing your story, finding areas of common ground. It has served me well in both my personal and professional life and opened doors that would have remained unseen had I not created the opportunity for them to be there to walk through.
So it was that I followed up on a post shared by a former colleague on LinkedIn from a New York based agency looking for freelance producers. It was 2019, I was in the early days of my Yachana journey, so I reached out and a few weeks later, had a call with Alan Doyle, CEO of the North American business at Set Creative, itself part of the global WPP agency empire.
I immediately connected with Alan. A fellow expat Brit, I was struck by his combination of friendly manner and sharp intellect. We chatted at length about my background and where my strengths lay in the breadth of production experience I had gained through my career. It felt a good fit and I was excited about the potential to collaborate.
An opportunity came on the radar soon after - to manage the webcast for a Volvo launch event in Los Angeles - but the project scope changed and my role wasn’t required. The conversation continued over the following year but the impact of COVID limited opportunities until in May 2021, I was engaged as the digital executive producer for Intel Innovation, the first hybrid event for the global tech giant.
The event, hosted in San Francisco that fall with a significant online experience in parallel was a success, and contained a career highlight when I went toe-to-toe (or should that be nose-to-floor) with Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger. Arriving on show day, he dropped to the ground to do some push-ups - part of his now iconic pre-event warm-up - and I felt compelled to join in. Little did I know that the moment was being filmed and I was immortalized on Pat’s Twitter feed soon after :)
The success of Innovation led to a further engagement to produce Intel’s virtual presence at the 2022 Mobile World Congress. Sadly, the planned keynote event that we were scoped to produce in Barcelona was shifted to an online pre-record in Santa Clara but working with a new team at Set and with collaborating agencies in Spain and the UK was a blast.
Which all serves as a preamble to why I found myself in New York on a sweltering early summer week at the end of June. Just as the MWC project was wrapping up, Alan reached out to see if I was interested in producing a live broadcast for Bayer to launch a new technology platform for radiologists. It was a new client for Set and I jumped at the chance to get back into the pharma world as many years had passed since I had worked for an extended period with GSK before my move to Canada.
The build up went smoothly, working with some new teammates on the set design and event planning and partnering with one of Set’s sister agencies Wunderman Thompson in Berlin. In these days of virtual collaboration when you only get to engage through the medium of Zoom or Teams calls, it was a joy to be able to spend a few days on location with the team that had supported me so well over the preceding months to design and deliver a top-notch event that the clients were thrilled with.
Finding satisfaction in working overseas has never been a challenge. Even as I’m well into the third decade of my career, I still get a huge shot of adrenalin from the whole process of arriving in a new place - or as was the case with New York, returning to a familiar one - and pushing myself to deliver the best experience I can. The blend of being in a different environment and forging immediate connections with a new tribe with a shared goal to excel remains intoxicating to me.
As ever when I travel with work, I look for moments outside of my official commitments to explore the place I am in, and this visit to New York was bookended by two that will last long in the memory. I was staying north of Central Park in Harlem. I’ve never been a fan of mainstream hotels, even more so when the nightly cost is egregiously elevated by their location in Midtown, so I found a basic guest house off the beaten track that afforded me a chance to explore a new area of the city.
Always an early riser, a situation exacerbated when - to paraphrase the immortal Frank Sinatra lyric, you “wake up in city that doesn’t sleep” - I decided to hit the streets at dawn and walk through Central Park. I was on 111th, the studio was on 57th. What could be better than a stroll of over fifty blocks first thing in the morning?
The air was already warm and humid as I entered the park. While I have enjoyed some part of it each time I have been to New York, it is still staggering to experience the scale. The iconic high angle shots of the park from the top of skyscrapers looking north and showing the green rectangle enclosed on all sides by the concrete jungle of Manhattan do no justice at all to the experience you enjoy at ground level. A vast labyrinth of pathways, roads, open greens, woodland, sports fields, lakes, and countless playgrounds and art installations, Central Park is a feast for the senses.
As I traversed the roughly five kilometres from north to south gates, my shirt getting increasingly damp from the effort and the rising temperature, I took a moment to pause and take this all in. I hadn’t visited New York for almost fifteen years but was again struck by the rhythms of the city. My ears were assaulted by the dawn chorus of the park birds. The distant sounds of car horns blended with the whirr of the endless bikers passing by and the pad-pad of runner’s trainers on tarmac, gravel and soil. Everywhere there is dynamism, movement, progress.
Which is why the park is such a sanctuary. Even as you see the increasingly large phalanxes of lycra-clad bikers rush by on the main thoroughfares, there are opportunities to find quiet. Every hundred metres I was offered a new option with the numerous pathways intersecting and curving away in all directions, winding around man-made structures and massive trees that have watched over the denizens of the park for centuries. Paths that disappear under bridges, wind up and around small hills, venture into secluded gardens. Central Park is the ultimate urban walker’s menu, offering something for every palate.
I enjoyed the walk so much, I repeated it in the evening for my return journey. The vibe was quite different to the morning. The park was crammed with people, the inevitable summer tourists snapping photos and taking in the atmosphere mixing with the local dog walkers, exercisers, school groups and families - a sea of humanity revelling in the balmy temperature.
I enjoyed the sun setting over the city skyline, reflected on the waters of the Jackie Kennedy Reservoir and shared the anticipation at a classical orchestral performance that was about to begin for the hundreds eagerly waiting in their lawn chairs. Darkness had fully fallen as I rounded the Ravine and landed back in Harlem, now alive with Afro-Caribbean music and patois along Malcolm X Boulevard.
My feet, clad in tight fitting leather brogues, were a little the worse for wear, with several sizeable blisters in evidence, but as I lay on the bed, trying to cool the body with the rattling air conditioner, no-one could doubt that I hadn’t received full value from my first day back in the Big Apple.
Fast forward a couple of days. The live event went great. Clients were very pleased and loved the whole experience. Time to celebrate. But instead of heading downtown for a ‘typical’ New York evening, I wanted to further explore the neighborhood where I was staying. After a few days in the city, the overall scale changes and you begin to notice the smaller details. Snatches of overhead conversation in different languages.
On a perfect summer’s evening, I set out around Harlem Meer, the small lake at the northeast corner of Central Park. There were people of all races, mixing together. An impromptu salsa dance party was in full swing with predominantly older Latino couple twisting and turning on a small verandah beside the lake. I wandered on and after a couple of blocks, found an enchanting Peruvian restaurant, Contento. It’s wooden outdoor seating area draped in flowing purple flowers was instantly inviting, and the vibe flowed inside with exposed brick walls and South American decor.
I got talking with one of the servers and found out that it was established by five partners, two of whom are in wheelchairs, so everything had been designed with accessibility at the forefront. I was introduced to Oscar - one of the owners and the head chef - who chatted convivially about his journey to New York from a town outside Quito and his lifelong passion for food. This was in evidence in the exquisite range of small plates that I sampled - amarillo potato stracciatella, caramelized beets, crispy pork belly and the best octopus I have ever tasted, accompanied by a Rkatsiteli orange wine from Georgia which was a delightful new discovery.
With a feeling of deep contentment and a heartful invitation from Oscar to visit again next time I was in town, I headed back to the Meer and completed a loop of the far side of the lake, before looping up again through the park to get around the construction of the new skating rink. Swallows hawked over the water and several species of heron fished noiselessly in the reeds as couples enjoyed the dying embers of the sunset.
My nightly adventure concluded with a lively conversation with Eddie, an older homeless black gentleman who regaled me with stories of his travels as a veteran of the US Navy who proclaimed he was a proud supporter of the Commonwealth. It was a well rehearsed patter designed to procure a drink - which against my better judgment I ultimately provided - but I felt pleased that I had taken the time to engage and not just walk on by, respecting that whatever circumstances lead someone to be cast aside from the mainstream, everyone deserves an opportunity to share their voice, wisdom and experience.
Wherever you find yourself tonight Eddie, I keep you in my thoughts - you provided a memorable ending to an unforgettable evening.