CIMA/AICPA, an international organisation representing the accountancy profession, required an MC to host a two day conference for several hundred delegates, including an annual Awards Ceremony, ensuring that events began on time, break times were not encroached upon, and everything ended on time on both days. Not only did they require somebody who could quickly and credibly engage a professional audience that worked day-to-day on complex issues, but they needed somebody confident delivering remotely, in a broadcast environment, able to ‘hold the room’ if the tech failed. The MC was also required to interview the two keynote speakers, Lord Sebastian Coe and Kanya King MBE, in an engaging manner, whilst fielding questions from the audience. In a separate sponsored Round Table discussion, the MC needed to ensure complex detailed questions were answered in a precise format, as requested by the sponsor. For the early evening Awards Ceremony, the organisers wanted a host who could change the mood, bringing energy to a celebratory event, whilst co-presenting with the Company’s President in a complex and fast-moving format, speaking LIVE whilst linking between pre-recorded videos. Once again, the event needed to end on time. During the event, technical problems (outside the organisers’ control) did indeed mean that the MC was required to step in several times to keep delegates engaged. On both days, the event began and ended on time. Within ten minutes of the two-day event ending, Emma Bailey, one of the leaders of the event’s organising team, emailed as follows: “John - you are an absolute, consummate professional. You have really added to the atmosphere -- thanks in part to the incredible preparation you put in beforehand, just as you did when you hosted our conference three years ago. I wanted to email you straight away to thank you -- and ask you for your postal address so we can send you a little something to add to your fee! We look forward to working with you again soon.”