Women make up 77% of the global events workforce, yet hold only 16% of leadership roles. The imbalance is well known, but the women driving this industry forward are still too often overlooked.
The 70% is a weekly series dedicated to changing that. Each instalment profiles a woman whose work, insight, and ambition shape the events sector – from emerging talent to established leaders. Through their stories, we explore the pathways, challenges, and perspectives defining what leadership looks like today.
In this weeks edition, we meet Evie Manuel, fractional managing director and commercial director at Evie Manuel Consulting and strategy director and co founder at Elevate NewGen, working with SME’s in the event, experience and creative industries.
How many years have you been in the events industry?
Fifteen years, across almost every corner of the industry. I came up through the ranks of a creative agency spanning production, entertainment, event design and venues, going from assistant to managing director before I was 30. That grounding gave me a deep understanding of a business and how every part of it fits together.
Since then I have focused on what I love most: growing businesses. As a managing director, commercial director and now fractional consultant and coach, I have worked with agencies and studios at different stages of growth, helping them build the commercial foundations, the operational structures and the high performing teams that allow them to scale sustainably. That combination of creative industry depth and commercial leadership is what I bring to everything I do now.
How do you balance professional growth with personal commitments and do you think the industry is evolving in terms of work life balance?
The industry has changed enormously since I started. There is far greater awareness now of burnout, mental health and the very real cost of constantly running on empty. It is an important shift and one I am glad the industry has started to take seriously.
When you are working towards an immovable deadline like a live event, there will always be moments where everything else takes a back seat. That is just the nature of what we do. The key is making sure that is not the default setting, because people simply do not perform at their best when they’re exhausted.
For me it is about creating opportunities rather than waiting for balance to arrive. I work hard and I love it, but I also know that at my most creative when I’m well rested. Those two things are not a contradiction.
I recently returned from three months travelling around South East Asia. After steering a business through a global pandemic, a major merger, and then taking on new challenges as a consultant and then Commercial Director, I realised I had been running on empty for quite some time. Taking that time to rest and reassess was the best decision I could have made. Coming back with fresh eyes, having experienced different cultures and ways of living, has given me real clarity on what comes next and left me more inspired than I have felt in years.
How do you see the events industry evolving in terms of diversity, equity and inclusion?
We are moving in the right direction, but there is still meaningful ground to cover, particularly when it comes to who gets through the door in the first place and who gets to progress once they are in.
That is exactly why I co-founded NewGen in 2025, with the wonderful Peter Kerwood, part of the Elevate Mentoring family. It was created specifically to address barriers to entry and support young people from underrepresented backgrounds into the events and creative industries. The talent is absolutely there, we just need to make sure the pathways are too.
Diverse voices do not just make companies more equitable, they make them smarter and more creative. If every perspective in the room sounds the same, your thinking will inevitably be narrower. That applies to gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, all of it. The best ideas I have seen come from rooms where genuinely different life experiences are represented.
What advice would you give to young women looking to enter and succeed in the events industry?
We have some extraordinary women in this industry, who are genuinely open to sharing their knowledge and experience, so the first thing I would say is: ask for help. Do not wait to be invited in. You will be surprised at how open and willing people are to support you.
As you grow, stay true to your own style rather than imitating others. You can lead with compassion and still be direct. You can be honest and still be kind. It took me a long time to stop mirroring my bosses and find what actually felt natural to me, but once I did I became a far better leader. My style has always been people first. Understanding what someone needs to do their best work, beyond the job itself. That does not mean I cannot give honest feedback or hold a firm line when I need to, but I lead with genuine care because that is what feels true to me.
And this one really matters: ask for the promotion or the pay rise before you take on the new responsibility, not after. Research consistently shows that women tend to wait until they are already doing the job before they feel they have earned the right to ask, while men are far more likely to negotiate upfront. Do not wait until you have proved it, back yourself and ask.
How do you handle set backs and failures?
I am a big believer in Carol Dweck’s growth mindset. You are not going to be perfect at anything the first time, and that is not a flaw in you, that is just the process. Some of the most successful people have a long list of apparent failures behind them. What sets them apart is that they understood what went wrong, learned from it and kept going. You will not look back and regret the times you tried and fell short, you will regret not trying at all.
I also think about this a lot in the context of imposter syndrome, which is something I talk about in my workshops regularly. There is a tendency, particularly among women and people from marginalised communities, to want to feel completely ready before taking a leap. Harvard Business School research has found that women are significantly less likely than equally qualified men to put themselves forward for advanced roles. Whether that comes from conditioning, past experience of being held to a higher bar, or simply following the rules more closely than the situation requires, the effect is the same.
Once you understand that imposter syndrome tends to show up precisely when you are growing, you can start to reframe it. Instead of a warning sign, it becomes a signal. You are doing something new, something stretching, and that is exactly where the good stuff happens. Feel the fear and do it anyway, then reflect on what you learned.
What changes do you think are still needed to create more opportunities for women in leadership?
The events industry is not short of women. But men still make up the majority of boards and senior leadership teams, and that gap won’t close by itself. According to McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace research, women hold just 29% of C suite roles globally, despite making up close to half the workforce. The events industry is not dramatically different.
Purposeful appointments matter enormously. Diverse leadership teams bring broader perspectives, stronger empathy for clients and ultimately better decisions. If the only voices shaping strategy all sound the same, you will keep getting the same results.
But ambition without structure does not get very far. That means investing in real progression pathways, not just at entry level but through the middle stages of careers where women too often stall or step sideways, especially if they chose to start a family. It means creating genuine sponsorship, not just mentorship. A mentor advises you, a sponsor advocates for you in the rooms you are not in yet. We need significantly more of the latter from both men and women.
The work I do through NewGen, coaching and leadership is rooted in exactly this belief: that if you invest in people early, honestly and consistently, they go on to do remarkable things and businesses thrive because of it.