Speakers Spotlight has six core beliefs and values that guide us in everything we do, from building our team, roster of speakers, and community of clients to cultivating a workplace culture that people want to be a part of.

These values fuel our mission and, for the last 28 years, have provided guidance as we continue evolving alongside our industry and to meet the needs of both our clients and speakers.    

This has never been more evident than in March 2020. In the face of uncertainty and a whole lot of rapid change, we stayed true to our values as we navigated through that storm, helping our clients and speakers do the same, and we’re proud to say we’ve come out stronger, more agile, and renewed in our sense of purpose.

So, while our look has changed, the core of who we are — our values — has stayed true. In part two of our “About Us” series, we’ll be exploring our values in more depth, including how they guide us in the work we do and how we, our speakers, and our clients have seen them in action. 

First up, we’re looking at what it means when we say, we are passionate and compassionate people.

How Passion and Compassion Have Shaped Our Team

Speaking with our co-founders Martin and Farah Perelmuter, they credited this value as a key guide when hiring new team members. Not necessarily a passion for keynote speakers, Martin added, but a passion for something; a spark that drives people.

Compassion is equally or even more important, Martin said, because we are a team that cares for each other, and anyone joining our team must share in that value. Watch the video below to learn more.

In the video below, Martin shares a story when he really saw this value in action within the Speakers Spotlight team.

Building on the value of compassion, Farah added that from day one, Speakers Spotlight has prided itself in giving back to their community. We support several charities and community organizations throughout the year by contributing a small donation from every one of our speaker bookings. She’s proud to lead a team who feels as committed to this as she was when founding Speakers Spotlight.

How Passion Has Fueled Growth

Hiring passionate employees and, more importantly, empowering those employees to follow their passion has directly impacted Speakers Spotlight growth into the full-service speaking bureau you all know and love.

Mélanie Roy joined us in 2005 as a logistics coordinator before becoming a sales representative for our French market. Being one of our only fully bilingual team members, she took on the additional role of being the main contact for one of our high-profile francophone speakers in 2006. This was the beginning of her evolution into her current role of Director, Speaker Relations.

“I am passionate about people and relationships,” Mélanie said, “and this role was essentially created for me to explore and excel within that passion. They gave me the freedom to lean into what I do best.”

It didn’t take long for Martin and Farah to recognize Mélanie’s passion for the speakers she worked with and in ensuring that every detail is taken care of for them. “They thought there might be something there,” she said, “and that other speakers could benefit from this type of care and attentiveness as well.”

Mélanie has now worked within her current role for more than a decade, working one-on-one with several of our exclusive and high-profile speakers. She is responsible for bringing on some of the incredible talent we are fortunate to work with and her role has evolved into onboarding new speakers, building out relationships with new and current speakers, and helping to manage their careers.

Both Speakers Spotlight and the speakers she works with know that with Mélanie at the helm, we’re steering in the right direction.  

Compassion in Action

We may be a little biased, but we have an all-star team. Erica Conrad joined us in 2020 — the first staff member to be onboarded virtually. She’s part of our incredible logistics team who support sales staff, clients, and speakers on every single event that we work on — and that’s a lot of events. It’s fair to say that they are the backbone of Speakers Spotlight.

Erica shared with us how this value in particular runs deep within the logistics team. “Everyone on the team,” she said, “puts such passion into their job, and you can see it in the way we share best-practices and resources with each other.” 

“Working on the logistics team, we are always busy!” Erica continued, “But we’re never too busy to help each other out. Whenever somebody is stuck with a difficult travel itinerary or can’t find a resource in a specific city, our teammates are always there with recommendations or to just talk it through and help each other out.”

While we are largely a remote and hybrid workforce now, it’s comforting to know that the kindness and compassion we have always valued within our team continues to thrive no matter where they are. This is the foundation of any success we’ve achieved to date.

This was the first in-depth look at our six core values and beliefs. We’ll be exploring more of them in the coming weeks with the help of our incredible staff and community of speakers and clients.