Director
Includes Sales, Research and Development, Presenter Training, Student Surveys and endless plotting and planning with Trudi.
I was the kid who put the stink-pellets in Aunties cigarettes!
A need for attention and an over developed sense of humour led to a small studio in Covent Garden, London.
I learnt to juggle.
A fine obsession.
Then a discovery – this skill could be used for more than simply entertainment! I became a charity fundraiser, juggling while walking ever longer distances to raise money for worthy causes. 200 miles - still a world record.
The following year, while travelling the world I boarded a yacht from Fiji to New Zealand and stayed.
What a country!
As a performer things really took off.
The skills piled up – magic, fire-eating, comedy, dance, mime, rola-bola, balancing.
Street performances were my bread and butter while stage, TV and venues from massive to minute supported my career.
Awards arrived.
Then another inspiration – use the skills to put across ideas. New skills were learnt – public speaking, presenting, motivating, running training seminars. The street became a thing of the past.
In 1999 I decided to use this format to present ideas to first year University students. After one presentation at Victoria University in Wellington, the response was such that the following year the presentation was in every University in New Zealand – yep – BOTH of them!
At about this time I teamed up with Trudi Urlwin, event managing super-star and suddenly everything was possible. We worked together to create the best, most comprehensive action and information packed lecture imaginable and take this to the students of the world.
UniSmart was born.
Director
Business management and event planning; technical and production. Script and direction. Marketing, publicity and media.
When I was about 10, I started a pop group fan club. As President, I ran it like a dictator. Members had to sit weekly tests and club prospects had to apply in writing to be admitted. I had a compassionate side though. Every week I would make chocolate fudge cake or marshmallow squares for the long suffering members.
I was so fired up and excited about live performance then. Music, the theatre, circus or dance. Always nagging my parents to take me out to a show.
No great surprise then that my first career was in theatre production,set and lighting design. Eight years making mountains out of scaffolding, drawing rooms out of drapes and designing the lighting to show it off.
The excersion into events management was a natural progression that enabled me to enjoy the best of both worlds in a corporate setting. The creativity of events combined with the pleasures of project planning kept me busy and professionally satisfied for over a decade.
But then I found that working for corporations and committees meant too much time spent in meetings and not enough action.
I wanted to be daring and brave and to forge new ground!
The challenging cliff of starting my own company appeared like a vision. Within three weeks of the idea, I had opened my eyes wide and jumped off the edge.
John Davey was an exceptional performer and an inspiring guy (still is!) who I had worked with on many projects over about five years. When we discovered a common purpose - to be a positive force in the world with live performance as the catalyst, our new company The Ideas Agency formalised the partnership. All of our energy was soon fired at developing a unique lecture that would impart what we saw as life saving information to young adults and first year students in particular. All other work activity (events for me and performance for John) was eclipsed in the effort.
UniSmart is the common purpose.
