I am a senior producer and lead for the Space & Satellite Portfolio. In this role I am responsible for building conference agendas for events on a range of topics in the space domain, the largest being MILSATCOM and SSA conferences. This entails researching the field by speaking to previous attendees and new contacts, as well as a large amount of studying latest trends and developments.

Once the event is thoroughly researched and I have worked out the best themes for the year's event, I will begin to invite speakers from the military and government to provide presentations. Again, these can be those who have spoken at and attended the events previously, but many are also new contacts i've had to dig out myself. Not always an easy task!

When the line-up for the event is complete, I then have to do all the necessary admin in regard to liaising with a designer for the brochure and working with our marketing, sales and logistics teams to ensure the event runs smoothly and is well attended. This can of course be quite challenging when it comes to dealing with speaker drop-outs and any other unforeseen circumstances, but also incredibly rewarding when it all pays off.

This process happens in tandem for a number of events at different stages throughout the year so it takes a fair amount of time management and priority juggling!

I finished my Masters in military history and was desperate to get a job related to defence. I saw that SAE was hiring and decided to apply, not really knowing what a conference producer was!

When I started at the company originally, I did events on all sorts of defence topics, such as helicopters and aviation safety, another colleague handled Space but this was very much roped off and I had very little knowledge of it whatsoever.

As such, it was incredibly daunting when that colleague left and I was asked to take over the Space Portfolio. I had to learn a lot all from scratch but as i've spent more time in the field i've grown into the role and find the growing space economy and community absolutely fascinating.

I love the experience of actually going to the event, travelling to new places, speaking to new people and seeing the event i've worked on for many months come to fruition!