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Behind the scenes stories, experiences and lessons shared by the world's leading event experts. Hosted by Christian Napier.
Speaker A This is Event Masters behind the scenes stories,
experiences, and lessons shared by the world's leading
event experts, hosted by Christian Napier.
Speaker B Well, hello, everyone. I'm Christian Napier, and I am
super excited to welcome our next guest. Today's guest
is an amazing person. I've known her for more than two
decades, and it's the incomparable Maureen Sweeney.
Maureen, how are you?
Speaker A Very well. Excited to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
Speaker B Well, I am honored to have you. And let me tell you and
everybody who's watching why I got to go to the bio
here. Your bio says you've got 20 years experience
developing and executing high end meetings, events, and
trips around the globe. But I know you've been involved
in this event space for even longer than that. Not that
I want to age you or anything like that, because that's
not it. All right, so hospitality, language services.
Speaker A Yes.
Speaker B And we've done a lot of work together on that one. And
event planning. So when it comes to this, you're dealing
with the VVIPs, the true VVIPs. And when we get to some
of these organizations, you're going to know who some of
these VVIPs are. You'll just understand how VVIP they
are. Lots of work on interpretation, program
development, dignitary, delegation, handling. Your bio
says you've held senior level staff positions and
advisory roles with multiple Olympic organizing
committees. Well, it's basically all of them since
Atlanta.
Speaker A I didn't do Greece.
Speaker B All right. What were they thinking? They should have
been using you.
Speaker A Sorry.
Speaker B To my friends and athletes. And in addition to that,
you've also served for over a decade or you served for
over a decade as the advisor to the International
Olympic Committee for Protocol and Language Services.
You've also worked on European games, the Warrior games,
Pan American games, world equestrian games. My goodness.
World Boxing championships. The Chicago Olympic bid. I
was working for Rio sorry. The US. Olympic Paralympic
Committee, and the Utah Olympic bid, which is ongoing
and hopefully will be settled soon. Fingers crossed. And
then, in addition to all of this Olympic and sports
stuff, you provided services for a lot of other high
profile international organizations. So 2020 Expo in
Dubai. Here come the VVIPs. Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, Lives and Livelihoods Foundation, Clinton
Global Initiative, and the Paul Allen Family Foundation.
And Vulcan. So you have arranged high level delegations.
We're talking about high level government officials,
visits to countries like Rwanda, Jordan, Senegal,
Indonesia, Ethiopia, Morocco, and Tanzania. Wow.
Speaker A Crazy places.
Speaker B In addition to all that, you are a founding partner at
Tiller Language Services, a boutique translation and
interpretation service provider. And when I was doing
work with the IOC on structured interviews, we used you
a lot, and you always provided great service there. And
clients of Tiller Language Services include
organizations like NATO. Yeah. Breakwater Strategy. GMMB
2026 World Cup United Bid. Airbnb. International Olympic
Committee. Five Currents. Our friends. Scott Givens,
Jetset Sports. ILuka. Gates, Ventures. This little app
that maybe some people have heard of called know if
anybody's heard of that know parent company, ByteDance,
the Global Nurses Union, VMLY and R and a ton of others.
Speaker A All right, you're making me tired Christian
Speaker B Well, basically, this episode is just me reading your
bio, and then we'll just wrap it up. But I'm not done.
Because you also hold a master's degree in International
Public Administration from our friends at the Middlebury
Institute of International Studies and a bachelor's
degree in International Relations from the University of
Oregon. Go, Ducks. And I'm sad to witness the demise of
the Pac-12 and your Ducks heading off to Big Ten land.
And my Utes heading off to Big-12 land. But that's the
way it goes with college sports. And this isn't in your
bio, so I hope I'm not violating any confidences here,
but she has an amazing family, and her daughter's
heading off to France next month for study abroad. And
she's an amazing hockey player as well.
Speaker A Absolutely the best.
Speaker B Okay, did I leave anything out?
Speaker A Maureen oh, my God, no, that's plenty.
Speaker B Okay, so now we got to go back to the beginning and ask
you, well, how in the world did you get involved in all
this stuff?
Speaker A Oh, my gosh. Wow. That's so funny. Well, I have an
unlikely list of experiences that probably started in a
sort of unlikely way. So I grew up in Oregon. I'm an
Oregonian. Not in Portland. You say Oregon, and everyone
says, oh, you must be from Portland. I grew up about as
far away from Portland as you could be and still be in
Oregon. So I'm from Medford, which is very close to
California, southern part of Oregon. Nothing
international going on. Never went on an airplane until
I was probably in my late teens, early 20s. So it
certainly wasn't something I was born into. Events. I
would say that I got into events because when I was in
between years at college, I would come home to live in
southern Oregon. And I was looking for a fun,
interesting summer job. And our local historical society
ran, at the time, several living history museums. I
don't even know if I've ever told you this story,
Christian, and you've heard a lot.
Speaker B I've not heard this. No, this is new stuff.
Speaker A This is new stuff. So I was really thinking about this
answer, and I went and applied because I had always done
plays and acting and stuff like that in high school. And
I got a job working at one of the living history
museums. It was called the Beekman House. And they ran
the house as if it were 1911. And they hired me to be
the maid, Louise. And I would do in character tours of
this historic house, and I would also cook on the wood
stove recipes from the time period. Anyway, so I got
this experience doing tours and events. We had a lot of
international guests, because a lot of people would come
through groups of I mean, I used to make jokes about how
I'm probably on the walls of hundreds of Japanese people
who took photos of me and my little outfit, but I
really, really enjoyed that job. And as I worked longer
at the historical society, they would pull me in. It's
it's a local community type place, so they'd be,
Maureen, you know, can you come do this fundraiser and
run the registration desk, or can you help with guest
check in? And it was super fun, and I really, really
liked it. So then a few years later, when I went off to
graduate school, I needed a job, and I got an on campus
job in the development office. And the development
office, as many of us know, with a nonprofit background,
is fundraising. And there was a lot of events, and I was
the helper on every single event. So creating the
collateral, the invitations, checking people in, serving
wine, all of that kind of stuff. And I really feel like
through those two experiences, along with the
international relations that I was studying at the
Middlebury Institute, it was kind of like a perfect
combo to then jump into events. And the event side of it
was really this is a story you've already heard. I
graduated from the institute in 1994, and that year I
was working for a local nonprofit looking for an
international job. And I would still go back to the
career development office at the institute and try to
find that perfect job. And I came one day, and there was
a listing that said, the chief interpreter for the
Atlanta Games. The Atlanta Olympic Games is doing
interviews for interpreters on site. You can sign up.
That was back when there used to be, like, a sheet on
the wall where you signed your name, and it did say in
big red letters, if you're not an interpreter, please do
not sign up. These interviews are for interpreters only.
I just chose not to read that part, and I signed up,
went in long story short, I really hit it off with the
chief interpreter, and he ended up hiring me to be his
assistant. So that was really my entree into the
international world of events. Hired to go and work for
the Atlanta Games, supporting the chief interpreter. We
had several hundred interpreters there, and that was it.
That's how I got in.
Speaker B Okay, but a lot of people get into you know, some may be
serendipitously, some may be intentionally, but not
everybody makes a career out of it. So you do these
Atlanta Games, right? You could go back to playing
Louise and cooking things on a wood stove if you wanted
to, in medford, but you decided not to do that. What
happened? I don't know if it's inspired or motivated or
led you to actually make this a career rather than kind
of a one and done. I did these Atlanta Games. It was a
lot of fun. Now I'm going to go back and put on my 1911
clothes and have a lot of tourists take pictures of me.
Speaker A That's funny. So I think I did the Atlanta Games and I
got to the end and I went, wow, that was really, I
really, really liked you know, I didn't mention this,
but when I was at the University of Oregon, I was
studying international relations. I spent one year
abroad in South America perfecting my Spanish, and I
think by that time I had realized, hey, I really like
this international part of the job. I like the
opportunity to meet people from other places, learn new
things. And then going off to Atlanta, I realized that I
liked that job too. So on the heels of the Atlanta
Games, so I ended up driving back from Atlanta to
Medford, which is that was a really long road trip. But
we drove through Salt Lake and at that you know, that
Salt Lake had the Games and I was very keen to continue
my experience. I actually got myself an interview. I
came in, so from the time the Atlanta Games were done, I
was already trying to figure out how I could get myself
on board in Salt Lake. So I was fortunate. I came back,
did the interview, then got home to Medford. I was there
for about a year still trying to figure out still trying
to convince Salt Lake to hire me, to be quite honest.
And eventually they did and then moved out here and did
about a three year stint. I joined in 99 and wrapped up
in 2002. I guess really my experience in Atlanta, I
liked it enough that I knew it was something I wanted to
do and then getting the job in Salt Lake and really
seeing it because I only worked for Atlanta for a year,
so it was more of a short term experience. But the, you
know, it was a soup to nuts. Three year had a I really
knew if I wanted to do it again. And when I got to the
end of that, I think I was kind of like, okay, I'm in.
And at that point I had to figure out, okay, how do I
keep doing this kind of thing but not have to keep
moving around the globe? Because I had gotten married by
then. My husband was like, I'll go with you places. But
he saw a lot of my friends, a lot of your friends, a lot
of people in the industry who've really had to spend
their life moving from games to games. And I knew that
wasn't going to be for me. So I started kind of diving
into how I could continue without having to move every
three to five years.
Speaker B So why don't we dive into that? How did you figure this
out? Because you're right, there are people sometimes
they use that term. I don't know if it's necessarily
politically correct term anymore to use, but the term
Games Gypsy right, it would just kind of move from one
games to another. And we both have friends or colleagues
that we've worked in the business for a long time and
that's what they do. They go live in Sochi for three
years and then they go live in Rio for a couple of years
and they just kind of go from one event to the next. But
you said, I don't want to do that, but I still want to
maintain or remain in this business in this event space.
So how are you able to actually figure that?
Speaker A Yeah, so after Salt Lake, I intentionally was, okay,
we're not going to move. We're going to try to figure
out what to do here. I was lucky because some of my
closest colleagues in Salt Lake did go on to work in
Torino and they were people who knew my work and had
seen what I did. And I was lucky because I was able
fairly quickly after the Salt Lake games to get kind of
a contractor gig working with one of my former
colleagues who is now in more of a leadership position
in Torino. I was also fortunate, I would say, in that my
husband has a real job where he gets health insurance
and a pension. And unlike a lot of people who don't have
that and need that secure full time or at least more
than every once in a while type job to pay the bills, I
had a little bit more flexibility. So I started working
with Torino and then realized kind of, okay, I'm not
full time here. I could offer my services up to some of
these other events that are going on. So I was lucky at
that point. I connected it's kind of funny about maybe
it was one of the reunions, maybe like just one year,
two year, three years. I connected back up with our
friends at Five Currents and they were working on the
Clinton Global Initiative. They said, hey, oh, you're
working part time now. You're a contractor now. Could
you do CGI with us? I think I had that anchor client in
Torino and then I was able to find sort of my first
small additional contract and then my brain started, oh,
like, maybe I have something here that I can put the
word out to my friends and I can piece together
different events. And I was fortunate to have done a
couple of games. So I knew people who had either
established a company or moved into a leadership
position at the next games, et cetera. And I was in the
fortunate position to be able to go to those people and
say, hey, I've got some extra time here's. Some of the
things I can do, you know, that I'm not a flake and kind
of was able to build on the relationships that I had
made at the two games where I did work full time.
Speaker B All right, well, this is really interesting because what
you've done is you've showed us that there are a number
of ways to actually be involved in this business, right?
So you can work directly for the organizer of an event
or the event owner. You can work as a contractor, as an
individual consultant to that event, or subcontracting
yourself through another company that provides services
in the event space, which you did with five currents.
Then you took it to another level because at some point
in time, you actually started a company yourself that is
not just yourself, but actually has a team of people.
And full disclosure, my son is one of them.
Speaker A Yes. Fantastic. We don't ever want him to leave.
Speaker B So tell us about that. The evolution of saying, okay,
I'm going to evolve from being the one man, show, the
contract for hire consultant who's got clients and goes
and does these things to then say, well, I can still do
that, but I'm actually going to take this to another
level and we're going to start a company that can
provide services here. So tell us the story about how
that came about.
Speaker A It's long and winding too, of course. So, yeah, I went
from being a full time employee, then I started working
as a hired gun, essentially. And then eventually, let's
see, so I did as as a contractor directly to the OCOG.
Then I added some of these agencies doing other types of
events, like CGI. I worked in Beijing 2008, then again
as a contractor to an agency. So, let's see, I would say
somewhere around 2010, because then we're getting up to
Vancouver, am I right? Okay. I can't even remember. I
had enough different pieces going that I mean, I
actually think it might have been my accountant who
said, like, you need I mean, it's not very exciting, but
he said you've got to incorporate now. You need to be an
LLC because you need to be able to write off your office
space and your computer and your travel and that kind of
thing. So the first thing I did was create my own LLC,
which was just Maureen Sweeney Consulting. It was just
me, and it was for tax purposes. But then some of the
people who were hiring me would say, well, we don't just
want you. We would like you to cover this service, or
we'd like you to bring a team. It was very helpful to be
incorporated, to be able to do that as. So I have
another person sort of in my sphere who Christian also
knows named Todd, who hired me to do a lot of his
events. I was hiring him to do a lot of my events. And
at a certain point, we decided that we should partner up
to kind of bring our two worlds together. So my world
was more sports and a few big international events. His
world was really the NGO and foundation side. He and I
came together and now work together under the title of
Tiller or Tiller Language Services. So we kind of pooled
our resources and realized we should be working as a
team versus just like kind of one off hiring each other.
So it was a slow development. It was like just me, me as
a consultant, me bringing a few people in under that
consultancy and then really coming together under Tiller
Global and then a few years later, expanding Tiller
Global into two companies, tiller and Tiller Language
Services, which is like sort of the next evolution in
the business of what.
Speaker B I've been up to, which is a lot. Okay, we've got to get
into some story time here. So you've told us the stories
about your evolution of your career here, but let's go
into some of the interesting experiences you've had in
this fascinating event career of yours. What were some
of the share maybe one or two stories about some of the
you always do this in a team. You can't deliver your
thing in a vacuum, right? Examples of teams that you
worked with, you know, where you saw great teamwork
leadership, you know, some of some of those kinds of
stories. Let's let's start there.
Speaker A Oh, my goodness. I was trying to think about this when I
was looking at some of the questions that you sent over,
and that was very helpful. Thank you. I think that one
of the maybe I'll tell you a story from like the very
beginning of my career, just trying to think of what
might be helpful to people listening. And then maybe
something from later on when I had more of an idea of
what I was doing. I don't know. So funny. Kind of fish
out of water type figuring it out story, I guess. When I
was hired to work for the Atlantic Committee for the
Olympic Games, my very first big event, it was kind of
fascinating because I went into that interview that I
mentioned earlier that I wasn't supposed to be at. I
actually left the building thinking, wow, that was a
very nice man. Super interesting. I'll never hear from
him again. And about two weeks later, I got a call back
on the Rotary know from someone who know, hi there, this
is Susan from the know, full accent. I was completely
thrown, and she said she was calling to offer me a job
as the assistant to the chief interpreter. And I said,
what? And then took the job. Ultimately flew out to
Atlanta. At this point, I think I was 24, 25. I had
never been to Atlanta. I got an apartment somehow over
the phone. Got an airplane, landed, had to find where I
lived. There are a lot of funny stories there. Showed up
at the office, which had craziness just in and of itself
because I had no idea how to even I didn't have a car. I
didn't know how to get from where I lived to downtown
Atlanta anyway, showed up and started working with very
little background. And the very first thing that they
threw me into was the World Wrestling Championships. For
anyone who knows anything about wrestling, which I did
not. Wrestling is one of the original Olympic sports,
and almost every single country in the world has a
wrestling team. So you're talking about a huge
operation. And they assigned me to be the onsite manager
of language services, which turns out covered, I think,
close to 30 languages with volunteers. And I'm like this
little 25 year old blonde girl from California who's got
no idea. So I sort of dove in and I started trying to
pull my teams together. And the World Wrestling
Championships is also interesting in that there's a lot
of rules for this event that have to do with the fact
that you have people coming from very sort of low income
countries, right? So the rules include at that time that
the hotel needed to be within a certain distance from
the venue and had to be under something like $82 a
night. Even in 1995, 80, was, like, not a very fancy
hotel. So we were staying at, I don't know, it's some
equivalent of like a Motel 6 or something right next to
the bus station in downtown Atlanta. So it was an area
that I would probably not have frequented ever. And then
to sort of facilitate the arrival of over 100 teams of
international wrestlers, which was also a little bit
shocking because if you don't have an experience in
wrestling, you don't understand. Like, wrestlers are an
interesting group. They have the ears that are like
ball. I didn't even know what that was. I didn't know
what was going on. I was like, what's wrong? Wrestlers
also, when they're in international competition, they
need to keep their weight where it needs to be. It's all
based on weigh ins. And so there were people throughout
the event who were running around with their whole body
wrapped up in plastic wrap, like, trying to not to sweat
and that kind of thing. And I was in charge,
essentially, of a good 50 volunteers speaking 30
languages for 100 teams of wrestlers from around the
globe. And, I mean, talk about being thrown in without
any kind of idea. I would say I saw the value of having
a truly multilingual and multicultural team of
volunteers available at your event because these guys
showed up, and a lot of them from really small towns in
Southeast Asia, the Middle east Eastern Europe, not
speaking, like a lick of English and really helping them
to just do the basic things that they needed to do on
top of helping them to have an experience in the United
States, which was like, for some of them, incredibly
thrilling because they'd never maybe even been outside
their region. It was kind of a make or break moment. I
feel like you were either going to kind of crumble and
cry and go hide, or you were going to figure out how to
help. We had a lot of emergency situations. Like, the
signs in the elevator did say no more than 200 pounds. I
don't know, not 200 pounds, but, like, seven people and
1400 pounds. No one could read those. So by the second
day, the elevator was, like, stopping like, a foot below
because it was so crammed full of wrestlers. So then
really quick, we had to translate all the signs into all
30 languages and post them because the elevator was,
like, breaking. There was a lot of people sort of
enjoying the opportunity to be out on their own. So
there were parties going on that we would then need to
go with security and our volunteers and say, hey, no
screaming, no throwing things out the window. It was
like my introduction to big international events was
sort of I feel like looking back, it was like a make or
break. Like, you either love this and you're like, okay,
or you say, okay, this isn't for me. And I think I was
scared, and it really, really pushed me. But it was so
exciting and so interesting, and I felt like I really
did add some value, so I got excited. So that's my first
event story. It was.
Speaker B A fascinating story, and there are a couple of things
there that resonate with me. Number one is that
experience could have scared you off. You could have
said, well, that's really not for me. But it points out
that it takes a certain kind of individual to actually
survive and thrive in this kind of a business. Which
really takes me to the second point. And you said this a
couple of times in your retelling of this story, which
is you felt like you were helping people, right, that
you were adding value. And I think coming at it from a
perspective of, I want to help. I want to serve these
people. I want to make sure that they have a good
experience. I think that's really noble. And it actually
takes me to another question for you, which is as you
have kind of surveyed the career experience over 20 plus
years here, what have been some of those really
heartwarming moments where you felt like, yes, just like
with the wrestlers, we had an impact, we made a
difference. We did something really valuable and
helpful. And every time you think back to those
experiences, you're like, this is why I'm here.
Speaker A Yeah, for sure. I think that's super important, right?
Because you want to do something that's meaningful with
your life, I think, or at least I do, and still fun. So
I think for me, that's sort of key. I want to do
something that means more than just making money and I
want to have a good time. I want my job to be enjoyable.
I want to feel like I'm like, oh no, I have to go to
work. I don't like that. So I would say, yeah, the
wrestler thing was quite an introduction since then, I
would say. So the events that I do through Tiller, we
really endeavor to make the majority of our events be
sort of, I don't even know what the word is. Like, they
don't have to be around philanthropy or they don't have
to be around sort of development. But that is the area
that we focus on events with, meaning, I would say we
try to go for if we can, not always. But in terms of
which ones really stand out, to me, I mean, there are so
many cool things I've been able to be a part of. I think
there have been a few trips that we've done,
particularly in Africa, where we are bringing either
wealthy families or individuals or we're bringing
organizations, funding organizations, to see projects,
to sort of try and inspire them to fund those projects.
And I would say there's definitely been projects where I
knew at the end the people were going to give money to
sustain those projects. And that is super cool. Some of
them have been around different diseases. I mean,
honestly, like tuberculosis, we've done a bunch of trips
around tuberculosis in Southeast Asia where at the end,
people really came away with an understanding of how
their money could make a real difference. And I think
for trips like that, the value that we try to add is
that we'll say, okay, so this is a group of seven
philanthropists. They're sort of interested in health
funding in Southeast Asia. Can you help us craft a trip
that will allow them to get the end of that trip and
feel like they know enough to feel comfortable making
like a huge financial contribution? So then we go. We
understand which diseases, for lack of a better term,
are interesting to them. We find the hospitals or the
programs that are tackling those issues. Then we find
within those hospitals or organizations, we figure out
who's the best speaker, who's going to really impact a
guest. Because you can go. I mean, some doctors, some
nurses are more impactful speakers than others. You find
those people who can really tell the story like you do
and get it all set up, bring those people over. And I
mean, I can think of a couple of different nurses in
particular. I'm thinking of some of the nurses that we
dealt with in Indonesia around tuberculosis and some of
the nurses that we've dealt with in Africa around
malaria who, when they speak and they tell the guests
about the kids that they treat and they show them the
different wards like there's not a dry. Eye in the house
and by the end of it, those people are like, oh my God,
I want to fund that hospital. Oh my goodness, I want to
contribute to training for a nurse's program or a
doctor's program. That is like the coolest when you get
because a lot of times we do events and you don't
necessarily see the tangible results. You see a good
event and you see people learning things and having a
good time, but that's like an extra added bonus to then
say, find out, oh, that person ended up paying for this
whole ward or this training program. On the sports side,
I would say the Olympics are always cool, but when I did
the Warrior Games, I didn't know that much about it. And
going into the Warrior Games and seeing and learning the
stories of all the different folks who had had injuries
and then were coming back and competing. That event, if
you ever need to feel good, the Warrior Games is like,
oh my gosh. The stories of the veterans that come back
and the stuff that you see them do and the camaraderie
that they have, like being at an event where you have a
lot of people who suffered the same kind of traumas or
injuries competing against each other and then going out
and having a good time. I have to say that event always
comes to mind because I didn't really know much about
it. And I walked in and I was like, oh my gosh, this is
so cool. It's like every day. It's one of those like
crying every day, but in a happy way because you see
somebody who lost their legs serving in Afghanistan and
they're winning gold medals and I don't know, that one
really got me. I really had so much fun and I felt like
this is pretty cool.
Speaker B Well, I'm sitting here listening to these stories and I
can imagine someone who's going to be watching this or
listening to this on Apple podcasts or whatever,
thinking to themselves, this sounds too good to be true.
This sounds amazing, I want this, right? But you would
probably be the first person to admit that it's not all
rainbows and unicorns. It's hard work and sometimes it
can be very stressful and sometimes you can get burned
out and sometimes you can work with people that are not
pleasant to work with and sometimes it just doesn't work
and you fail. And I'm curious to ask about that because
we hear about how amazing it is and it is and that's why
we are here, right? It's why you and I are still doing
this stuff after all this time. But it's not all rosy.
And so I'm curious if you've got any experiences,
stories you can share where things didn't pan out.
Speaker A Yeah, for sure. And I think that's a really good point
because I have seen over the years people who really
think that they want to do events. I'm sure you've had
this experience, too, where I'm in an interview with
somebody and they're like, my know, I grew up in
Vancouver, and now the Vancouver games are here and
really, really want to do this, and they're just going
on and on. And then I ask them about their background,
and their background is not super operational. It's more
like they've worked in fields where there are actually
procedures and a clear plan and process and you know, I
think I think that I mean, it's a different it's it's a
different question. I'm I'm probably jumping ahead here,
but I do think that it's important to understand that
just because you like going to events or you like
watching events on TV does not necessarily mean that
you're going to like delivering events. And I feel like
every time I've done the Olympics in particular, there
are just as many people at the end, I'd say it's 50/50,
right? Or hopefully it's 70/30 if I've done my hiring
correctly. Like 70% of them are like, oh, my gosh, I
don't want to do anything else but this. It was amazing.
And then there's a solid chunk of people who say never
again because it's long, long days. There's no book.
There's no procedure to follow. As much as people like
Christian and I who've done this many times, try to
really make things clear and have processes and
procedures for know, I'd say that a good portion of the
job is really like changing everything at the last
minute, like being ready for those. Like, okay, all the
plans that we made right now no longer apply. What are
we going to do? And being comfortable just making stuff
up, which in terms of things that I've done that have
failed like I've done, I do something every day that I
fail at. But I think the most important thing is to
understand that I don't usually use the word fail just
because I feel like that sounds so extreme. Like things
just don't go to plan often. Or maybe the plan that you
made was not the optimal plan. And I think being okay
with accepting that and changing and moving forward and
not being somebody not getting caught up in blame, I'm
always like, I don't really care who messed this up or
I'm happy to take full responsibility for this falling
apart. Okay, we're done with that. Now we have to make a
plan for what we're going to do, because you can't have
an entire event not happen just because one thing didn't
work. So my best example here and the biggest what felt
like failure to me was for the Vancouver games opening
ceremonies, which I was responsible for the presidential
box of the opening ceremonies at the Vancouver games in
that presidential box, you see it on TV every time you
watch the opening ceremonies. It's the head of state of
the country. The mayor of the city, the head of the IOC,
all of the heads of every delegation. So if Russia's
coming, Putin's in the box, maybe not, you know, like
the Queen, stuff like that. And in Vancouver, the bus
carrying that delegation of humans took a wrong turn
because there were huge protests going on in front of
where the bus was supposed to turn. And the bus didn't
arrive on time. And when it did arrive, it dropped those
people off, not at the door adjacent to where they were
supposed to sit on camera. They were dropped like four
levels down at BC place at an unknown entrance. And my
job was to make sure that those people were sitting
where they were supposed to sit for the first camera
shot, and the TV show was being held because they
couldn't do the shot. And so the pressure, even now,
thinking about it, it's one of those, like, I remember
being on the radio with the person inside the bus to try
to identify where those people were going to get dropped
off. Finding my way down there and then having to lead
them from that door, which I'd never been to, on a floor
I'd never been to, to the entry to their box, had no
idea how to get from that place to that place. So then
had to find people who could lead me, had to walk with
purpose and determination to get them through, lead them
in. When the NBC was having to hold the like, that was a
pretty big failure on many people's parts. But it's like
you can't start crying and go hide behind the couch. You
have to be like, okay, so we're going to be late, but
this is how late we're going to be, and this is how
we're going to rectify this and make it as good as we
can in the moment. So I feel like I got done with that
and I had some time alone in a closet with the door
locked with my thoughts. But those kinds of things
happen at most events. And I think it ties with the
other question about getting into this. You have to
think about, well, can I handle when those kinds maybe
not to that extent, but the chairs don't get delivered
or the mics all go dead, or those are the kinds of
things that we deal with. And if you're okay with that
and you think it's kind of fun and you can recover, then
this is a good career for you. But if you're the type of
person who's like, that sounds awful, you're probably
more normal than us.
Speaker B Yeah, well said. One thing that I wanted to ask you
about is, and I want to ask everybody who comes on, is
it's difficult to make it in this kind of work on your
own? If you have someone who will champion your cause,
who you can learn from, it's really helpful. I'm talking
about mentors or people that are willing to take you
under their wing. And you may have been able to kind of
be on both sides of that fence where you have been
mentored by people and you've also been in a position to
help other people who are just starting out. And so I'm
curious if you've got any stories or experiences to
share about mentors or being a mentor yourself.
Speaker A Yeah. No, I absolutely agree. I think the whole mentor
thing is hugely important, and I think having a close,
tight network that you support and supports you is also
extremely important. So, I mean, from a mentorship
perspective, I feel like that person that I've mentioned
or alluded to a few times that ended up hiring me as
their assistant in Atlanta, bill Weber, who's been
involved with the Olympics since 1968. I mean, he really
was the person that brought me in and mentored me and
sort of allowed me to become part of his circle. And I
can't thank him enough for it. Like, he and I are still
extremely close. And then I feel like in the intervening
years before I was able to sort of mentor and help other
people, establishing that kind of network, because it is
an unusual career where you don't have people in the
office and a desk next to you. So you need to find those
people that you like and that will help you and you can
help and will hire you, and you can hire them or will
tell you about other events that are going on, really
fostering that network. So I feel like people like
Christian and I are part of that support network for
each other. We have many other friends. From the
beginning, I have made that a part of what I do. I know
Christian has as well. I spend a certain amount of time
per week every week since I created my own consultancy,
and even beforehand, just connecting with people that I
know and like, and not with the expectation that they're
going to give me work immediately or not with anything.
Like always trying to have lunch with people who are
nearby, seeing people when you go into other cities,
sharing information in the hopes that they will share
information with you. I think that I just can't even
overstate how important that is. And I think Christian
and I are on the same page. There very much now. Yeah, I
absolutely I want to be able to help people the way that
people help me. You got to pay it forward, and it's also
hugely helpful. The people that you want to mentor are
going to be people that you think are going to be the
leaders in your field. So it's funny. Bill Weber, who
brought me into this industry, always makes this joke at
meals or toasts or things. He always says, I hired
Maureen and got her her first couple of jobs. So that
she would hire me for the last 15 years and get me lots
of jobs. Essentially. Yeah. I think that because as a
freelancer or an owner of a small company or
consultancy, you don't have that sort of colleagues
sitting around you in cubicles. You've got to foster
that on your own. And I feel like I can just verify that
the people out there who wanted to kind of do what I'm
doing, what Christian's doing, like what some of our
other very successful friends are doing but didn't
succeed, are the people who just really didn't like that
part of the job. Like, they felt guilty reaching out to
people, or they felt weird about setting up lunches and
phone calls. I think it's so incredibly important
because you have to market yourself, and you can't do
that on your own. You need, like, a team supporting you.
Speaker B I think that's very well said. As we come down to the
home stretch of our conversation here, before I get to
my final couple of questions, did we leave anything out?
Are there any stories that I've missed that you're like,
I'm dying to tell this story. I've been waiting years to
tell this story. I need to tell this story.
Speaker A Oh, no. I have a couple that might be good for, like,
the late night version. I don't know. I can tell you
one. That's Sally, my daughter Sally, was like, oh, you
have to tell the story about Morocco. And it's pretty
funny, I guess I'll have to tell you. So I did an event,
a learning trip in Morocco with a group called the Lives
and Livelihoods Fund that Christian mentioned at the
beginning. They're a group of rich Middle Eastern
countries or more wealthy developed Middle Eastern
countries. This organization then makes large financial
contributions to more developing or lower income Muslim
countries. So they wanted to go to Morocco, which does
fairly well. I mean, they're not necessarily, like a
super poor country, but this group was interested in
learning about their sort of they've been very
successful in cooperative farming, and they wanted to
learn about different types of farming that was
happening around Morocco, kind of to look at as a model
and also to support those projects that were working
really well. So we were out in the country looking at,
like, olive groves, and there was a ladies cooperative
that did herbs, and it was really cool. And I was doing
the advance, meaning that on the day of the trip around
Morocco to see the different places, I would jump ahead
of the delegation, meet with the main people, make sure
everything was in order and then I would be texting with
my team that was coming in the van with the actual
guests to have their presentation because we would only
have, say, an hour to 2 hours at each site to make it
through the day. So the morning went great. We went and
saw some olive growers in the morning. I got there,
checked everything out. The two most engaging guys are
there. I can text. I make the entry to the guests great.
Then I jump in the car, go to the next site. It's the
ladies cooperative. We're having lunch there. We're
eating the lunch. That includes the herbs that's been
grown. I get them all in. I get them seated. They have
their food. It's all fantastic. I jump ahead to the last
site. The last site is this awesome guy who is a
beekeeper, and he has all of these bees. The site is
fantastic because he's extracting the honey, right? So
he pulls out the thing, puts it in the machine, it goes
through the honey, comes out. They're going to talk to
him about how he does it and takes the different swarms,
different places, collects the honey. He has the honey
for them to eat. He has goodies made out of the honey.
It's like the grand finale. The guy doesn't speak a lick
of English, by the way, but is the nicest guy. I get
there on my own. We're having our little sign language
phone conversation about ready to go. I'm like, you know
what? I need a bio break. You can cut this out if you
need to, but it's so funny. So I'm going to go. I'm
going to put my hand sanitizer. I'm going to use the
this is rural Morocco, so we're in not a real bathroom.
We're in a pit toilet. I go to the back. I'm going to go
there. I'm going to come out, and then I'm going to text
and say, we're all ready to go. And I go in and I didn't
realize that my Apple iPhone was in my back pocket of my
oh. Or I could text the delegation, which includes,
like, secretaries of high level finance people from
eight different Middle Eastern countries. My phone. I
hear a that was my worst day of doing events in the 25
years I've done, because at that moment, they don't want
to arrive. There's, like cameras. They don't want to
show up without that text. That motorcade is waiting for
that text call. So the hardest thing that I've done in
my 25 years was to lean over and pick my phone up out of
that location and make a text call. I'm sorry,
Christian.
Speaker B You can wow.
Speaker A Sorry was so good.
Speaker B That's worth it.
Speaker A And they got the text. They came. Everything was
fantastic. I never told anyone what happened until the
debriefing, and I won. Best story of the trip.
Speaker B Okay, pun intended. That's a really crappy story. I'm
glad that the phone was actually an arm's length and you
could reach it, because sometimes if the pit is too
deep, I mean, what are you going to do?
Speaker A I was very happy that I could reach it. Yes. And it
still worked. And that I had that would lead to another
piece of advice when you're doing events, always have,
like, wet wipes in your kit.
Speaker B Phone always in the front pocket, and always have wet
wipes.
Speaker A In your front pocket. Don't put it in your okay.
Speaker B So that's probably the most important advice we've
received all day. You've shared a lot of advice, and
that is one question that I do have, is, aside from all
the advice that you've already shared, is there any
other advice that you'd like to share with someone who
is contemplating potentially working in this industry?
Speaker A I would say do some events before you make that
decision. Because like I was saying, when I've
interviewed some people in the past, I can tell from the
interview, based on what they've been spending their
whole life doing, that they're probably really not going
to like the job. They just have an idea of what the job
is. So I would say if you really want to do events, even
go do some little events. If you're in college, go work
in the development office or work in the athletics
department and go volunteer somewhere to do an event,
because it's really not what you think it is. It's fun
and exciting, but a sports event isn't doing sports. A
celebrity event isn't being a celebrity. You know what I
mean? Like, you truly are doing a very separate job from
what the content of the event is about. And I think I
see people who love playing sports, so they think that
they're going to enjoy working at the Olympics, and they
don't. I mean, some do, but it's a common misconception.
And I think even doing events on a very small scale,
they do replicate that. Kind of like having to make last
minute decisions, everything changing, things going
wrong, being able to think on your feet, not having any
kind of guidebook to follow. Make sure you really like
that. And if you like it on a low level, like a small
scale, not a low level, that sounds bad, but on a
smaller scale, you'll probably like it on a bigger
scale. Like, how much did the stress that you went
through bother you? If the stress kind of got you
excited, you're probably a good candidate. If the stress
made you go, like, I need more rules or details or
guidelines, then maybe not.
Speaker B Well, I said we were wrapping this up and gosh, we've
been going an hour here. But I have to ask one other
question, because when you were talking about that, I
was thinking to myself, one of the things that could be
a turn off for some people, but actually is a big
motivation for me is if you enjoy active learning I like
calling it that. Then it can be fun. And the example
that I would give is you bringing me on to Tokyo to do
this junior interpreter program.
Speaker A Yep.
Speaker B It had never been done. I don't know anything about
working with simultaneous interpreters other than having
used them know, you being a service provider and having
some interaction with interpreters, but actually
developing this kind of a program or something. I never
did anything like that. And you, I think, half jokingly
asked if I'd be interested, and I half jokingly said,
well, sure, job offer to you. But it turned out to be
for me, it was a really great experience, and it gave me
an opportunity to learn something that I had not done
before. I enjoy that. I enjoy learning, having these
opportunities to learn how to do new things. And I think
working at events provides ample opportunities for you
to stretch outside of your comfort zone and learn to do
new things if you're willing to do that, because the
opportunities will be there. And so that actually leads
me to the question for you, which is you came in into
this industry as a grad student and you developed a
number of skills over a period of time. And maybe you
have some experience or stories that revolve around you
getting an opportunity to learn to do something new that
you didn't know before. Aside from the wrestling one,
you told us the wrestling one, it was all new. Right.
I'm going to stay here in my lane and I'm going to do
the thing that I'm really good at doing. But you've
advanced your career because you've been willing to take
on things that maybe hadn't been done before or do
things that you hadn't done before. And so I'm just
curious if you've got any experiences you'd like to
share around that the acquisition of new skills and
knowledge.
Speaker A Yeah, it's a really great comment that you just made. I
do think that is one of the reasons, similar to you that
I love doing this, because every event, I feel like with
the exception of those that are very like, sort of the
dry kind of corporate get togethers or whatever, you do
get to learn something new that you dive into. I would
say for almost every one of these learning trips that
I've done, we've had a few where we've had three or four
tuberculosis related trips, or three or four malaria
related trips. Even though you're not the content expert
on those trips, you can't seem like a dummy because the
guests are going to ask you, right. And you can't every
single time say like, well, why don't we talk to Bob,
who's the preeminent expert in malaria research. They
want you to say like, so why don't we do X? Or how come
some people get bit by mosquitoes more than others? You
have to have that basic knowledge. Like you. I love
that, right? It's not boring. So in terms of learning
something new, I honestly feel like every event, with
the exception of those that are more like an annual
meeting or something, I've had to spend time learning
about the content of the event that I was delivering,
and I love that. I would say in terms of just learning
something brand new, you bringing up Tokyo is a good
example. Tokyo, I feel like me and everyone on the team
had to learn so many new things. We had to learn how to
deliver an event in Know pandemic for Tokyo. I was
initially hired to deliver the interpretation services
for the Olympics, which I'd done many other times in the
past. But then it started changing on a weekly basis.
They came to us first, and they said, okay, we don't
want people to use usually for simultaneous
interpretation, people, you hand out these headsets, and
then you check them out, check them back in. They didn't
want to do that because it's the pandemic. You don't
want to stick something in your ears that somebody else
just stuck in their ears. So they said, can you come up
with an application that will allow people to use their
own headphones? So that was sort of the first step.
Okay, we had this app. How do we make it so that people
can use it for headsets? Then we had always had on site
volunteers. Well, guess what? We're getting rid of all
the live volunteers. We need something to replace them,
but we can't pay as much as we need. For those high
level professional interpreters who are doing
simultaneous interpretation, what should we do? To be
honest, I kind of made something up along with my
partner Alex, which morphed into the junior Interpreter
program that Know. Alex and I had come up with this sort
of general idea and a general concept. And then we hired
Christian, who really then took that concept of, okay,
we're going to use recent graduates. We're going to use
people who are maybe still in interpreting school.
They're going to do consecutive interpretation over the
Internet. Okay, Christian, take this concept and turn it
into an actual program. And then they said, oh, and
guess what we need? For every group over 20 that are
traveling to Tokyo, there has to be a COVID liaison
officer that makes sure all the COVID rules are
followed. And we were fortunate that Christian had a son
that we hired. And that was made up too, frankly,
because we were bringing 85, 90 people over to Japan.
And what should that program look like? What do we need
to tell people to do? And all of that happened in the
year between when we were supposed to deliver the
Olympics and when we really did. So it was all active
learning and active developments. It's almost like the
most extreme example. But I do feel like for all events,
if you're good, the value that you can add to your
client is to really digging in and understand not only
their content, but like, okay, you've always done it
this way, but what if you did it this way? Here's some
new ideas and suggestions, and it'll make your event
better, and it'll be something new and interesting for
me to add to my toolbox for the next people that I go
and offer an event to. So it's huge. That's a hugely
good point, and I think that's another way to be a good
get your foot in the door and have good ideas and be
open and creative and think about not just doing
everything the way that it's always been done.
Speaker B All right, well, okay, my last question, and we talked
about this a little bit before we started recording,
which is if you had a chance to do it again, what would
you do differently? So that's my last question. I'm
curious to hear your response to this because you were
like, I'm not exactly sure I'm going to answer that
question or how I'm going to answer that question. It
reminded me of the quote. I don't know if you remember
the movie incredibles, the incredibles Pixar movie, and
there's a character in there named Edna Mode, and she's
like the fashion designer for the superheroes, and she
has this quote in there where she says, I never look
back, darling. It distracts from the now. Right. So at
the risk of getting that kind of answer, I'll go ahead
and ask the question anyway, if you had to look back,
would you do anything differently?
Speaker A You know, like I said before we got on air, I am a
little bit like that. I'm very much a look ahead person,
and maybe that means I'm not very reflective, but I feel
like I don't think there's a big thing that I would do
differently. Honestly, I'm pretty happy with how things
have played out in my career. I feel like I have made
some good choices, but I've also gotten lucky. So if you
change your choices, maybe your luck would have changed,
too. You can't mess with the past. No, I don't know. I
think maybe. Hmm. I mean, it would always have been nice
to know some of the things, you know, when you're older,
when you were younger, right. I mean, that adds another
level to it. But if I could have known when I was young,
what I know about just kind of not getting staying calm,
not getting so anxious, I don't know. But I believe that
level of calm that maybe you have more of when you're
older, you have to live through all the pain of your
youth to acquire that wisdom and knowledge. So I guess
I'm just going to say no. I could have made a lot of
different decisions that maybe would have made me more
money or got me somewhere else, but I'm not messing with
that. I'm happy with where I am. And there's no point in
second guessing at this point. It's too late.
Speaker B Well, you're in a great place. You're in a fantastic
place, Maureen. And you've helped so many organizations,
so many events, so many people. And if people, maybe
they're planning future events, maybe they need
interpretation. Maybe there are new people that are
considering getting into this business and they're like,
wow, Maureen sounds amazing. I really need to connect
with her. What's the best way for people to reach out
and get in touch with you?
Speaker A I'm happy to have people email me.
Maureen@sweeneyglobal.com is the best way to get a hold
of me. And, yeah, I'm happy to share anything I might
have learned over the past 20 years, and I'd be happy to
hear from folks.
Speaker B All right, fantastic. We'll put that email down in the
show notes so people can see that without having to
watch an hour of video to find out what your email
address is with that. Thank you so much for dedicating
so much of your time to share so much of your knowledge
and experiences and your stories with us. I really
appreciate it, Maureen. Thank you very much. And
listeners and viewers, please like and subscribe to our
humble little podcast here and we'll catch you again
soon.
Speaker A Awesome. Thanks so much, Christian. That was super fun.
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