Tomorrow’s Talent Winner 2023: Becca Shinner

Becca Shinner’s route into events took her via a temporary role in the finance team at Alzheimer’s Research UK. After 18 months working as a finance assistant dealing with invoicing and expenses, Becca applied for the role of events executive and hasn’t looked back. Since starting in the charity’s events team in July 2021, she has helped organise various events such as the London Marathon after-party, EDoN conference and Alzheimer’s Research UK annual Research Conference. At the start of the year, Becca was promoted to events officer and started delivering her own events.

What’s your proudest career moment so far and why?

One is being nominated for this award. I had just come back from our Research Conference in Aberdeen, where we have over 400 in-person delegates over multiple events, over three days. I created the registration pages and was closely involved with this project through the planning stages, so it was so nice to get to deliver this event with my team and meet the delegates. I then came back to an email saying I was nominated for a Tomorrow’s Talent award - and won! I didn’t know about the nomination and felt a great sense of gratitude and appreciation for my team and myself.

What do you most love about working in events?

I love seeing a project from start to finish, and in between all the chaos of the planning before an event. I love the sense of calm and satisfaction on event delivery day, and of course getting to meet all of our amazing supporters, researchers and runners. When you see how much our events shine a light on our amazing work as a charity and you get to meet those who are personally affected by dementia, you realise why we do our work and I feel extremely grateful to be a part of such a great organisation.

What’s been your most memorable event to date?

It has to be a two-day meet-up event we organised for our Drug Discovery Alliance members. This involved a networking reception, three course dinner and a conference on the second day. I was involved throughout the planning stages, finding a venue and liaising with them as an executive. Although train strikes were announced shortly before the event, we managed to arrange alternative transport and still received amazing feedback from all those involved.

What would be your dream event to work on?

Glastonbury, I love music and I would love the chance to work at such an iconic festival and see how the logistics work behind the scenes and see some incredible artists.

Who is your biggest inspiration and why?

Malwina Soltys - she is a colleague of mine and has been in the industry for over 10 years. There are many reasons why, but to list a few, she personally created a mentorship programme which did not exist prior and I was privileged to be her mentee. She always provides guidance, leadership and is one of the strongest event professionals I know. She takes a lot of pride in her work and always delivers to such a high standard while having a smile on her face and willing to always support her team and others in our organisation.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years’ time?

I see myself still in the events industry, but travelling more with events across the world and potentially pursuing other pursuits which can be incorporated with helping others more hands on, such as volunteering abroad and life coaching.