Liz Quick University of West London, UK

Liz Quick graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London with a BA Honours degree in German and Drama. She began her career working for Lufthansa German Airlines, working as a Ticketing and Passenger Services agent at London Heathrow Airport and undergoing regular training courses at Seeheim in Frankfurt, Germany. She then made the move into the events industry, initially joining GL Travel Incentives, a UK-based Incentive Travel agency. Here she operated a number of overseas incentive trips on behalf of their clients, to amongst other destinations: Kenya, Hawaii, San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro and Monaco. Following this she moved to Talking Point Ltd, where she operated a number of international conferences and incentives for various blue chip corporations. During this time Liz helped set up the first UK event implant office, at the then SmithKline Beecham in Brentford, London, working in a Business Development role. This was the first time event spend had been consolidated through a sole agency and Liz was instrumental in setting this up and liaising with key clients within the Research & Development and Consumer Healthcare divisions of this major pharmaceutical company and securing the re-tender for sole supplier with the organisation for a number of years.

She later joined Plus Two Communications Ltd, then TMB Marketing Communications in Dorking, where she worked as Account Director on a number of key accounts, including Bristol Myers Squibb, Olswang, Johnson & Johnson and Wella UK. Liz also worked as a freelancer for some years and set up her own event management business. She worked with a key sponsor and partner on the London 2012 Olympics and regularly volunteers at festivals such as Glastonbury, Cornbury and many others.

In 2006 through a chance meeting with a previous colleague at a conference she got the opportunity to start lecturing on a freelance basis. In 2010 she graduated from the University of West London with an MA in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. She now brings her industry experience as a Senior Lecturer at the University of West London and over the last decade has gained extensive experience in course development and leadership, teaching on both undergraduate and postgraduate event management programmes. Liz is passionate about blending both the academic and more practical elements of the event management course she teaches, so that students can ‘hit the ground running’ when they graduate and enter the industry, which is the key motivation for writing this book.