“Never be afraid to face the impossible because one way or another you will make it possible!”
Vanni Martini Bernardi joined former Swisscom Hospitality Services in 2006 as a consultant and has during the years held different positions in several countries within the company. He has worked as a deployment project manager, conference architect and production facility supervisor. Vanni is today based in Geneva at Hoist Group´s Swiss subsidiary.
What are your current responsibilities?
My main responsibilities are to define event team scope, coordinate event teams to sell and to plan and execute events across all the countries where Hoist Group operates. I also organise the central deployment team that handles support, handover and staging. In addition to this I support the ISS academy when it comes to manual creation and courses for operations.
What does a typical day at the office look like?
Defining the way to operate for the future and in what direction the two teams should head, are the main activities. Organise and motivate the teams to perform even better, takes up the rest of my time. Up to 40% of my time, I dedicate to travelling and visiting my customers to sell and to elaborate technical solutions for large scale events.
What do you like most about your job?
That every day presents a new challenge!
What are the biggest challenges?
The biggest challenge is for sure, trying to cope with teams squeezed to the limit in terms of resources to satisfy internal needs as well as external. To adapt and always do your best requires a lot of flexibility at all levels – from team members to the management.
What are your driving forces?
To never be afraid to face the impossible because one way or another you will make it possible!
Do what you know, the best you can and learn the rest. Then you´ll be able to look back and realize you are already far over your expectations.
What quality would you say is the most important to be successful in your role?
In order to be successful in this role you need to have wide experience in conference management and operations. That´s the key to understand and drive the business. Strong pragmatic approach is also required when a solution needs to be found. Because a solution always has to be found.
How would you describe Hoist Group as a workplace?
As I have been changing several tasks and countries (Italy, Spain and France) over time, I experienced a unique family feeling working across the countries. All the people I have been working with have always been highly motivated and very professional. I think the friendly and cooperative environment we work with today gives us the motivation to succeed in our market!