Latest / The Backdrop Podcast / Episode 2 - Nadim Jamal, Co-Founder Event Lab

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Episode 2 - Nadim Jamal, Co-Founder Event Lab · The Backdrop Podcast

0:18
SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to the backdrop.
0:20
SPEAKER_01: Today's guest is Nadeem Jamal, who's the co-founder of EventLab and Mystica.
0:26
SPEAKER_01: Event Lab, you may know, is one of the Middle East leading event staffing and recruitment companies.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: Mystica is a cultural entertainment company.
0:33
SPEAKER_01: Now, over the past 20 years, Nadeem has worked across some of the region's biggest events and productions, building a strong reputation in workforce planning, operations, and talent development.
0:43
SPEAKER_01: He's also become one of the industry's most active voices around topics like freelancing local talent development and raising workforce standards across the full event sector.
0:53
SPEAKER_01: Through Event Lab, he's helped drive conversations around how the industry can build stronger, more sustainable workforces across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and the wider region.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: So I'm pleased to welcome today's guest, Nadim Jamal.
1:07
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: I said this before we started recording, and honestly, there's been such a massive boom in the market in terms of the space that you're in right now.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: Event Lab has really taken it to another level.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: And uh it's something else that I mentioned before.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: It's really that care that your team takes in dealing with not just the clients, but also the clients on both sides, of course, the ones that you're hiring for and the ones that you're hiring and the due diligence that you put into that.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: We know that standard and sophistication of event is really at another level every year in the UAE and the region in general.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: That level just goes up a notch and up a notch and up a notch because the expectation is so great.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: How do you create that sort of competitive differentiation with Event Lab when you have so much competition to find that level that's really gonna make a difference for those events?
2:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think when we started the company, we ourselves, myself and my business partner Murad Shisha, were freelancers ourselves in the market.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: And we started it because there was nobody at the time, not one single company at the time that helped event professionals find work.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: We were on our own, left our own devices to to find our next gig.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: We built the company very much with the with that experience at heart and in mind.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: We want to treat people as they would, as we would have wanted to be treated.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you you mentioned there are two clients.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: You're right, the the candidate is also a client, but before that, the candidate is a person with needs, with circumstances, with trying to manage either a very busy schedule or a very stressful, not busy schedule where they're looking at their bank account dipping down in between projects, right?
2:53
SPEAKER_00: Or diminishing in between projects.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of stress with that, and there's a lot of stress with that.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: So it's treat people as as you'd want it as you'd want to be treated yourself.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: Now it's very difficult because obviously my team are constantly talking to new people, they're reaching out to candidates about opportunities, they're uh updating candidates about the opportunities they've already spoken to them about, telling them that the client didn't the project didn't go ahead, the client picked another candidate.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of people to talk to to say the least hundreds per day that that any any good recruiter uh should be talking to.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: Not everybody does that.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: It makes a big difference, as we were briefly talking before the cameras started rolling.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: It makes a big difference to the candidate.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: They need to understand their lives.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: And even though we don't manage to update every single person that reaches out because just there's not enough hours in the day, we're number one, actively creating systems to try to automate the process a bit.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: Not every step of the process, because there we shouldn't remove completely the human element of it, but at least let people know your CV has been submitted and is in review.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, the client has picked another candidate.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: Feel free to reach out to us in case.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: And that could be an automated message.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: At least it, you know, when you're dealing with these hundreds of people, at least it updates that person and informs that.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: Shows you're on the radar.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: It shows you on the radar, shows that you you've cared to create that system.
4:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: And with the system that was previously all done manually, it literally picking up the phone or sending a WhatsApp message or sending an email.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, that's that's one of the things that I would say differentiates.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: Another one is that we care more about the quality of output than we do about the money that we get from uh delivering a poorly or uh half-baked solution.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: So, for example, client comes to us looking for a project manager in the peak of peak season, right?
4:32
SPEAKER_00: Project manager Arabic speaking needs to live in Abu Dhabi, right?
4:36
SPEAKER_00: You're you've shrunk it down to this.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: We're not gonna pay for accommodation.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: Let's say the client says we're not gonna pay for accommodation.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: There are very few candidates in the market.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: We won't present anybody unless we know that they're gonna do a great job.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: So we prefer not to present anybody than to just present somebody who's a project coordinator that needs to be stretched up in in capabilities to actually be a project manager.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: Or somebody who we know has a very difficult personality to deal with.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: We don't deal with, we have a a no policy in the company.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: If somebody's a racist, a sexist, you know, just has has a terrible character, we won't represent them because, you know, people, the people that we put forward have to be good representatives.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: You don't want to get someone over the line just for the sake of getting someone over the line for options.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, yeah.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: Exactly, just for the sake of of selling.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: And I think that there's a lot of there's a lot of that happening in the market because there's a lot of uh uh there are targets that need to be hit.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh there are ambitions, and sometimes those ambitions and those targets get ahead of the duty of care to deliver with quality.
5:38
SPEAKER_01: Are the hiring clients are they they're appreciating the fact that you're not going to just offer them someone for the sake of offering them someone because they have to hit a deadline, they're under the urgency of launching uh an event and they need someone to fill that that role.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the ones that have been working with us for years and years and years, they're they're extremely loyal.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: A lot of clients have come back to us.
5:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure that they see the results of having the wrong person, and that reflects on any group that you know suggests and puts people on that role.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: Bear in mind, every single client, every major client has an inbox full of CVs, and every individual within that organization has an active LinkedIn account, obviously, right?
6:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they can all reach out to people.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: They're coming to us for a reason.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: They're coming to us for a guarantee of successive placement, right?
6:21
SPEAKER_00: Because we can analyze in a way that they probably can't.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: And and we spend for the last 14 years, we've spent all day, every day just doing event recruitment.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: All day, every day.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: There's a team of people, there's a database of over 60,000, 60,000 event professionals from the region, from the world.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: We have people in Brazil, in the UK, all over the world, right?
6:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: And we know that database because we we don't just place full-time where you you place somebody and then you hopefully don't see them because they have a very successful, you know, career in in that placement that you put them in.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: But we we we're constantly rotating people in freelance placements.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: So we get to get to know the candidates quite intimately.
7:01
SPEAKER_02: Right.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we understand their quirks, we understand their life circumstances.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: Mary has a kid and needs to be home by six o'clock, you know.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: We understand that, you know, and and we find jobs that fit just the nuances of the person's circumstances, but also the person's personality.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, you're not gonna put somebody who specializes in luxury events to set up a a rock concert, and you're not gonna put somebody, you know, it's so you have to match the person to the job, to the culture of the client and to the role.
7:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:32
SPEAKER_01: Align the DNA.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: Align the DNA and yeah.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: So again, before we had a little chat before we we started recording and and uh we were talking about what what started the the whole idea of event lab.
7:45
SPEAKER_01: This was sincerely and genuinely born out of a need that was formed from your own experience.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to give a little bit of background on that?
7:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I was a freelancer as I as I mentioned earlier, and you know, you're you're working 15-hour days, you know.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: I I used to shift was from when I wake up and get to site to when I go to sleep at 2 a.m.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: That was uh that's how I did it.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter what how many hours the client expected of me.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: I was running my own personal business, the freelancer, the business of being a freelancer, right?
8:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so long hours, six days a week, seven days a week, you're committed to that job, you're chasing payments from the previous job, you're updating your CV, you're applying to this, you're getting rejected from that, you're getting accepted into that, but it conflicts with this.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: It's challenging.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: It's hard being a freelancer.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: You have to promote yourself constantly.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: And it's also hard for clients, and it's still hard for clients, with many clients complaining today, about uh to validate the skill sets that people put forward on their CVs, right?
8:46
SPEAKER_00: So we figured, right, clients are struggling, but they didn't yet realize that they were struggling, and the freelancers are definitely struggling, and they definitely realize that they're struggling to find work.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: Let's create something that solves that problem.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: And it took a bit of convincing to a few clients because a lot of clients were saying there were first of all, nobody in the Middle East, it wasn't just here, right?
9:07
SPEAKER_00: There were a couple of crewing companies, right?
9:09
SPEAKER_00: There were, you know, but and and there were several ushering and hostessing and promoter agencies, but nobody focused on freelance placements of freelance of event professionals, right?
9:21
SPEAKER_00: So when we started it, it took a bit of convincing, telling clients, look, I know you used to do this yourself, I know you have your own database, outsource this because you're not a recruiter, you're an event professional.
9:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: Focus on your event, focus on your PL, focus on your client, and let us take care of building your team.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: And I get guess what?
9:39
SPEAKER_00: Within five minutes of a conversation, we can understand your brief as we're event professionals.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: We can understand your brief as well as as you do, right?
9:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just give us all the information.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: Understanding your brief allows us to give you advice.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: You say you want six stage managers.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you what, I think you need four.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: So you've just saved now 2,500, whatever 2,000 didhums into two people into 10 days.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: Right.
10:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: We'll use that money to get you a better show caller.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: Clients started to see the value of that.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: And we were very lucky.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: Our our first few projects were with WRG, who eventually shut, and the leadership of WRG here created founded people, amazing client to work with amazing agency to work with.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: They entrusted us with a really on our first few projects with quite a sizable team.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: So we got to bring in the the best of the best, personality-wise, of people, and we were bringing in people from outside the industry because the industry was still small.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: You could count the number of good freelancers on okay.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you couldn't count them on two hands and two feet.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: There were about 250 to 300 good quality freelancers in the GCC in 2013 when we started Event Lab.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: 23.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, when we started Event Lab.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: So we had to bring in people from outside the industry, from the film industry, from the fit out world, from the engineering world, graphic designers who became eventually holistic creative directors over the years, you know, and really create, add entrants of talent into the market.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Clients started to see that, and suddenly these new, you know, amazing people that got along super well with each other started popping up on their project, proactive, kind, can do attitudes.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: Clients got hooked.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: So uh, you know, I had a had a few questions in my mind that I that as you were speaking, I think you answered a lot of that.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: How you vet how you vet the right people, how you ensure that you maintain the integrity of the events through uh the people that you um that you that you analyze, identify, and and then suggest or recommend.
11:35
SPEAKER_01: But I wanted to get when you talk about how you created, I'm sure there was some sort of gap analysis or benchmarking, uh reverse benchmarking.
11:43
SPEAKER_01: What are you seeing differently in the last maybe five, six years?
11:47
SPEAKER_01: I can see that there is a difference.
11:49
SPEAKER_01: I see that there is from a manpower perspective, supply is just through the roof and the demand is not really equaling the supply yet.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's definitely evolved.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: It's definitely a more mature market than it was uh before.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: And as you said, the supply not just of of workforce of professionals, but also of companies and agencies has increased.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, we see an expo, and you know, you see this big spike in in supply.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: Right.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: Then the expo finishes, and a good number of the people that came over to work on that stick around.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: We also now have something that's a very good example, you know.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, most of the most of the year the weather's amazing, it's tax-free.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a good it's and it's exactly what the government wants.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: But then also we have now something that we didn't have before, which is a bustling market in Saudi, right?
12:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: So you have many people who live here and pop over there for projects.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: Before you when you were here, when I was a freelancer, it was there were a few projects in Saudi every once in a while.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: But it was, you know, I went to Saudi once in my entire freelance career, maybe twice.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, twice.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, it was it was, you know, now you have freelancers that live here and pop over there, and and and vice versa.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: Actually, you're now starting to see some freelancers there that pop over here as well for some projects, yeah.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, which was didn't didn't exist before.
13:12
SPEAKER_02: Right.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, what else has changed?
13:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, it does make a huge difference having a legal recognition of a freelance status, having visas that allow freelancers to be actual freelancers.
13:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: It nothing like that existed before.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: Everybody was operating illegally, basically.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: Because there was no way to operate legally.
13:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's great.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: But also on that note, I mean the the the government here, the well the governments across the region, but the governments here in the UAE, let's say Dubai specifically, are really, really supportive of the industry of the advanced industry because they see uh how much uh it does for the economy, for tourism and all of that.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: And they've just launched the uh the I can't remember exactly what it's called, but the the creative fund basically to support creative professionals now, artists, uh graphic designers, et cetera, uh film professionals, et cetera.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, they they recognize that attracting this talent um does generate a lot.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: It generates for the art scene, it generates for the culture scene of the country, and it and it, you know, simply it's ever every one of those creatives that decides to move here and invest here or not leave here chooses to stay, has a car that they have to buy, has a has an apartment that they have to rent, has you know, bills that they have to pay, and that feeds into the economy.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: So, yes, they recognized that this is a an important segment.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: What I what I still would love to see globally, this is not just here, you know, you know, when you pop into any any job drop-down list in anything, you're signing up.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: Even I've I've even signed up for some exhibitions where in the job drop-down list of the event, you have agricultural engineer, uh, architect, yeah, yeah, doctor.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: They had this conversation.
14:56
SPEAKER_01: You can't see event professionals anywhere.
14:57
SPEAKER_01: We just had this conversation, right?
14:59
SPEAKER_01: And it I know I've gone off topic of it, it's bizarre.
15:02
SPEAKER_01: No, it's bizarre.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: And and I think whenever you're filling out for a visa or you have anything that's related to an industry, there's events as not in the drop list.
15:11
SPEAKER_01: You'll see the strangest things, but you won't see events.
15:15
SPEAKER_01: It's a massive part of the identity here.
15:18
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's pretty wild.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I find it I find it below.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: Hopefully that's changing.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: I hope that's changing.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think I think it will.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: I think, I mean, look, events, event, there's a reason why Flash was created.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: There's a reason why Silla and Saudi was was invested so heavily in, you know, yeah Flash that became Ithara now.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: You know, it events put countries on the market, they stimulate the economy.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: I mean, uh companies like Informa and DMG and Messi Frankfurt and and all of our you know, all of these guys, they these guys generate millions.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: Again, there was a lot that I wanted to go into, and I think you know our conversation was was pretty robust, and we we answered a lot of that.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: I want to ask you about Mystica.
15:56
SPEAKER_01: Am I pronouncing it correctly?
15:57
SPEAKER_01: You're pronouncing it correctly.
15:58
SPEAKER_01: Okay, Mystica.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: What I I know event lap, but I wanted to find out a little bit but what what's going on with Mystica?
16:05
SPEAKER_01: What is this?
16:06
SPEAKER_00: So Mystica is a partnership with us, myself and my business partner, and uh very talented event professional and musician, um, fellow musician, because I also used to sing in bands, and my business partner was in several cultural dance performance troops.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, we all came from an entertainment background, we have a passion for entertainment, and we found ourselves with a niche.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: The niche is cultural entertainment specifically.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: Right.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: Cultural entertainment being any form of entertainment that has some sort of cultural ROI to the audience, right?
16:41
SPEAKER_00: Some sort of cultural message, some sort of story, spirit, as opposed to jugglers and stilt walkers.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: Everybody can do the jugglers and stiltwalkers.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: Don't forget minds.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: And minds.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: I've I've I've never booked it.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: Very underrated.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, very underrated, actually, very entertaining when they get it right.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: We formed Mystica to help the market with a few missing pillars in the market.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Number one is the authentic traditional Middle Eastern Emirati Saudi GCC cultural demonstrations and shows, right?
17:15
SPEAKER_00: We've been privileged enough to be involved in multiple shows as freelancers, as service providers, where we've gained an expertise in this over the years, over 15, 16 years of being in the industry, understanding how to authentically deliver and translate and also expand on into modernization of into uh pushing the boundaries of what's culturally acceptable to demonstrate this culture, right?
17:44
SPEAKER_00: GCC culture, Emirati, Saudi, etc., and have become very well known within the ministries of culture, ministries of tourism, etc., for being able to deliver these shows to the highest of quality.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: That's one pillar.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: On the other side, you have the regional cultural scenes, the indie artists, the uh theater groups, the uh the even down to the culinary scene, the the rock star chefs coming out of Egypt and the hip-hop artists coming out of Syria and whatever, right?
18:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: These are an underrepresented but highly demanded segment, right?
18:26
SPEAKER_00: We saw you know the Wasla Festival.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you if you're familiar with it, but that was an indie music festival that was super successful.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can, you know, these indie artists that come in, they they pull a crowd, you know.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: The Egyptians want to see them, the Jordanians want to see them, and and even if non-Arabs go to those shows, the the indie music scene of the region is is very suitable for an eclectic ear, right?
18:53
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to understand what the artist is saying, you know.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: Um so Jimmy, uh who is our partner in Mystica, um, and a very dear friend of ours, comes from the heart of that scene.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: He was he was in one of the one of the founding bands of the Egyptian indie music's in uh scene, right?
19:14
SPEAKER_00: And he's friends with that scene.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: So we program, we book, we tour manage, we do end-to-end solutions for it for shows that need, you know, that want these kind of artists come in.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: Mystica's going places.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm very excited about the success that it's already achieved.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: Um we created um a one-hour show at the Louvre for the Al-Burda Islamic uh cultural awards, where we got artists from around the Islamic world, each with their own different culture and interpretation of Islamic music, and created a one-hour-long sort of show with an orchestra in the background of original music all seamlessly composed, entertaining within the topic of Islamic culture, which is a sensitive topic.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: You can't go too far.
20:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: But you have to be entertaining at the same time.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly the kind of show that Mystica specializes in.
20:13
SPEAKER_01: When when I first I moved here in 2008, when I first running events, we started doing these social visits uh for for guests that were coming in from other parts of the world.
20:23
SPEAKER_01: And of course we do give them the dune bashing and all this kind of stuff, and then we do these little, you know, the shows in the desert.
20:28
SPEAKER_01: And I'll never forget how angry someone got at us because the belly dancing, belly dancing is not part of our culture.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: Please don't upset.
20:36
SPEAKER_01: So it's it's just you have to understand it.
20:38
SPEAKER_01: If you don't understand it, like you said, you can really miss the mark and you have to be very, very careful about how you present a culture.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: So to what extent are you involved?
20:47
SPEAKER_00: We'll understand the client's brief and we'll come to them with a creative solution for that with some creative options, and then we'll execute that whole thing from the choreography to the stage management to the cast management, yeah, to the scenography, the design.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: We're not an event agency.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: We'll work with an event agency and and complement.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: So we won't build the stage, we won't, you know, we are we create entertainment shows.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: It's been a breath of fresh air, specifically for my business partner, who's much more involved in that because you know that's that's the world he came from.
21:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, and my role in in Mystica's I I get the good word out.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: I I present it to clients, I you know, I business develop it, but Murad, my business partner, and Jimmy, our partner, Mystica, they're the they're the core of that, and they have an incredible team uh between here and Egypt.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: Actually, a lot of our team uh is based between Egypt, Saudi, and and the UAE.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: Where are you originally from?
21:39
SPEAKER_00: I'm Lebanese.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: You're Lebanese, yeah.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of um creative expression that comes out of Lebanon.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: There's uh there are a lot of scenes that come out of Lebanon, yeah, and a lot of passion, a lot of there's a lot of stories.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: Because Lebanon is a difficult place to to grow up, you know?
21:56
SPEAKER_00: It's uh you every every X number of months or Years you get some sort of calamity, yeah, and people have to deal with that, so they express themselves artistically.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: There's not, unfortunately, there's not a lot of opportunity within Lebanon for artists and uh artists of any type.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: And that's not for lack of desire.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: Not for lack of desire.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: It's a small country.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a small population.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: You're talking about nine million people, and and and every time, as I said, I mean, when you when you're interrupted every X amount of time with some sort of crisis, it it's it pulls, you know, pulls the rug from under your feet.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: So um, but there's a lot of export of that talent.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, we're we're a country of exports.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: Some of the best, most passionate stories are not going to come from, you know, Los Angeles or Toronto or places like that.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: They're gonna come from places that have stories to tell.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's obviously Lebanon and uh or Ireland, you know.
22:50
SPEAKER_01: It's these people have gone through something that have something to say.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: I I wanted to just sort of finish off with congratulations on Mystica.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: I think that I think it's very, very cool that that journey where you found a need for something that is now you're creating the template for because it's how you want to be treated with Event Lab.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: And from there, you got the opportunity on the back of that to say, you know what?
23:18
SPEAKER_01: Now let's go with what I have a passion for.
23:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: And now Mystica has been created.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: What's next?
23:24
SPEAKER_01: Is there a third baby on the way?
23:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's there's a third baby that's already delivered, which is our uh after we we started with event recruitment and and purely focusing on freelance and full-time placements of skilled professionals, right?
23:39
SPEAKER_00: A few years later we also identified a gap for event staffing.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: The gap is not to say that so the supply chain didn't exist, it's just that we felt that there was a specific way that we wanted to deliver that service as event operational professionals.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: Right.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: And we started a division that did ushers and hosts and guides and so on and so forth to a very sophisticated level if the client needed it.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: Right.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: And the sophistication comes in the planning, in the way that we plan with the client, in our in our genuine understanding of event operations, in our ability to deliver to scale smoothly across the board.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: Right.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: Right?
24:20
SPEAKER_00: Never letting a client down, etc.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, you have a couple of, you know, an usher here or a hostess there that didn't really feel like being there for the day.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but the overall operation is always smooth.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: And the overall quality of staff, the the 99% is always top tier because we know how to recruit.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: We are recruiters, of course.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: What's next?
24:42
SPEAKER_00: We have a long list of ideas.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: Um we're using this time now, as things are quiet, to do something we've been dreaming of for a very long time, which is take steps back into analyzing every single step of our operation and cleaning it up and modernizing it.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: We've we've been taking the step into digitization, modernization, and you know, going into software for a long time, but um the step that we're taking now is leaps and bounds forward from where we were.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: We're not gonna suddenly turn into a an AI-only company, you know.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: There will be it's a it's a people's business after all.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: So there have to be people, and you know.
25:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:24
SPEAKER_01: That takes care of my follow-up because I was I was gonna say, how is anybody not incorporating or feeling compelled or feeling it compulsory to incorporate AI into what they're doing day-to-day?
25:35
SPEAKER_01: And I was gonna ask you, uh are you finding any way to utilize AI as a tool in that day-to-day?
25:41
SPEAKER_00: We're a very nerdy business.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: We just haven't had the time to execute the nerdy changes, the level of nerdiness that we need to be at.
25:50
SPEAKER_01: But there's a sensitivity there as well.
25:52
SPEAKER_01: And I think once you start going into that sort of like banks where you know you don't often get to speak to a real person that it gets.
25:59
SPEAKER_01: I hate that.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there always has to be a talk to a human option for sure.
26:03
SPEAKER_01: Humans are there, they're trained.
26:04
SPEAKER_01: They're you feel at least you get the sense that you are being even if they don't have an answer, you know what maybe something inside them knows the experience that I'm going through right now.
26:14
SPEAKER_01: They know what I'm feeling right now.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: That element will always remain because I think that is one of the most appreciated things about the way that we have always done things, which is we we have to it has to be a duty of care and a and a human touch to the interaction with everybody that we are dealing with, right?
26:32
SPEAKER_00: But no, there are certain mundane things that will need to be automated.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna give away too much of that right now, but we're not exactly sure.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: We we of what we're gonna do next.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: And the reason why is we always make sure that from day one, we always give at least three years to every new vertical or offering that we that we give.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: We've already branched out into the leisure and entertainment world, yeah, as a second, as another industry, which is you know, we're recruiting to Qadya, we've we've recruited heavily several of the properties in in Saudi, the big developments, um, recruitment and staffing, both of those.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're staffing and recruiting to Miral in in Abu Dhabi, uh to the parks down there, very successfully, and they're very happy.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, but we always make sure that our house and our current offerings are fully, fully delivered to the highest of standards, whether it's in our in whether it's competitors of ours or other service providers that do different things, get excited and try and do too many things too fast, and you stumble on yourself.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: And the minute you don't deliver that first service that you initially set out to offering to the highest of standards, your brand name loses value.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: The trust in in you, yeah, as a founder, the trust in your team, even if it's other people in new departments.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: If your company X used to do water really well, and then one year later you suddenly want to do sodas, and your soda is being sold under the brand name of X and you're not doing it well, automatically that brand of your water loses equity.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right?
28:13
SPEAKER_01: No, for sure.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: So we have exciting things and the lists, but we're not sure what those are gonna be yet.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: Once we pick them, we're gonna do it right as we've always focused on getting things right whenever we launch that.
28:25
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, you have that passion still.
28:26
SPEAKER_01: I can see that you're never gonna let go of that passion and excitement to sit and think, you know what, we can do this because you already have the mechanics of the entrepreneurial mindset.
28:36
SPEAKER_01: You you you have a brain for it, right?
28:38
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people don't have that.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: Someone will have a great idea, but they don't know how to execute it.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: The biggest thing that I have right now, that we have now is an incredible team that knows how to execute things.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: The best thing that we did was taking a step back to allow our team under our CEO Shoba, who's just incredible, to grow, right?
29:01
SPEAKER_00: So Murad and I have stepped into positions where we can focus on ideation, where we can focus on strategy, uh, growth, relationships, etc.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: And also a bit of an ROI of a bit of personal space, you know, of being able to be a father and you know, but the biggest accomplishment, honestly, has been seeing the company operate without me having to interfere too much.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: If I disappeared, yeah, the company would still go.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: So that allows me to say, all right, I think we should start selling water or whatever, you know.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: I think we should do this, this or that.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: And whatever gets voted in and approved after we've studied it and really done our due diligence actually gets executed to the highest of standards, you know.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: It's it's obvious when you see that there's a consistency, a continuity in the results that they're providing, that there's integrity investment within that team, where they treat it like it's not just a nine to five.
30:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that it's it's really important to have care.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: It feels good, it's the right way to do recruitment.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: If we can make money as a byproduct of helping good people find good work with good clients and helping good clients find good people, yeah, win win win.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: And the money is a byproduct of that, then it's a lot more personally and and and professionally gratifying than only caring about the bottom line.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, obviously we have to.
30:31
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're gonna bump into somebody say, you know, because of you and your company, I'm now VP.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: I was hired as a manager, you know, nine years ago or ten years ago.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: We have ushers who are now senior managers, ushers that we placed nine years ago on jobs who are now senior managers.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: So you played an integral and direct part in the journey in their life and probably help help raise their families in one way or another, you know, in that way.
30:54
SPEAKER_01: So that's that's got to be gratifying for sure.
30:57
SPEAKER_01: Nadem, uh, I really, really uh want to thank you for being with us today and sharing your time Saturday morning.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure you got a lot of stuff to do, especially with little ones at home.
31:06
SPEAKER_01: But I want to ask you one last question.
31:08
SPEAKER_01: What advice, what kind of advocacy would you provide to anyone, like a freelancer, anyone out there that's looking to uh establish themselves?
31:16
SPEAKER_00: I think um I can I broaden the the question a bit?
31:19
SPEAKER_00: I want to actually talk to job seekers within the events industry.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: The market has obviously taken the hit that it's taken.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: We know that due to and what we mentioned earlier, there's been a big influx in event professionals who've settled in the region because it's a great place to be.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: So there's a large supply, or if you want to call it, of talent.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's a very, very, very tough time to be unemployed at the moment in whether you're working in the events industry or any other industry.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: In the events industry specifically, I have this conversation with freelancers all the time, and and I'm I'm glad you've you know given me a platform to say it, another platform, because I'm kind of repeating this over and over again, whether it's on my LinkedIn posts or here, because I want as many people as possible to hear this message.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: Not every freelancer is good at managing their own personal finances and budgeting.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: And I implore everybody to do so right now, if you haven't done so already, because we don't know how quickly work of any proper sufficient uh sufficient volume of work will come back just yet.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: And if you are in a situation where once you've done your proper calculations, you realize I only have one month left in the tank in the bank account, then you need to very, very quickly start to make some changes.
32:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: Those changes may include drastic changes or minor changes, cancelling subscriptions and you know, switching from waitros to union co-op or whatever it is for your grocery shopping.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: The reality is that summer is coming in, certain projects are being slated for end of Q3.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: We know that everybody's talking about a big bounce back in Q4.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: We know that the government is wants to do a comeback.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: So have a plan A, have a plan B, and have a plan C now.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: In the meantime, whether you're a new entrant into the market or work on that CV that you haven't worked on for a long time.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: Start networking on LinkedIn, and I mean proper networking, actually sending messages and creating relationships with other individuals online so that you're not just relying on applying for the few job posts that go on because you and a thousand other people are applying to those few job posts.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: Try to find friends that are working in certain companies and offer your services, see if you can diversify.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: And diversify means if you're senior and you find a manager level role, go for the manager level role.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: It pays the bills.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: If you're a creative director and you see an art director role or a studio manager role, which is a let's say, or if you're an art director and you see a studio manager role, diversify horizontally, expand on your skill set.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: Even if if you have to go online and answer surveys for$20 an hour, do it.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: Do whatever you need to do to get through this tough period.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: If you're gonna leave for the UAE, you don't need to leave for good, because it's one of the best places in the world to be, even Saudi for the events market at the moment.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: I know in COVID times there was a freelancer that opened a bakery, uh a butchery, sorry.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: She opened a butchery during COVID times.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: It became one of the most successful butcheries in town.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, fixed chocolate came out of the pandemic.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: Some people have been brave and set up side hustles to that started as side hustles just to bring in some income.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: And starting a butchery is an investment in Shallen Cor.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: You can my my my cousin and his wife were selling empanadas out of their out of their kitchen during the pandemic.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: His his wife is here.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I need a phone number.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, they stopped doing it.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: They did something on the side.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: His wife is Peruvian.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: They did something on the side that that made money and that kept them busy in in times like that that didn't require a big investment.
35:17
SPEAKER_00: So I see a lot of people struggling.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: I feel the pain.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: I know what it's like to be a freelance professional or or to be on the hunt for work in in the dead summers of 2012 for Event Lab, you know, when there was no Saudi to keep us busy in the summer, then it's tough.
35:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's really when the development starts for Q3 and Q4.
35:38
SPEAKER_01: So luckily there is that as well.
35:40
SPEAKER_01: But I get what you're saying.
35:41
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, be mindful of the resources that you have in your possession now and and make sure they're controlled because we don't know what the future is going to hold, at least for the short term.
35:50
SPEAKER_01: If you have to go junior, go junior.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: If you have to go lateral, go lateral.
35:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, reinvent yourself and and find new ways of of uh managing your time and managing your your funds.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: And uh try to upscale as well.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: I see a lot of of career stage managers and site managers going, I don't have any work.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's because what you do relies on a job going live.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if they were to apply their knowledge of the events industry into something else that, for example, was relevant to the pitching, you know, then they can join as a freelancer, they can join pitches, which happen usually, as you said, in the dead season, you know, and that keeps them busy, or they can join the the the planning team in the lead up.
36:35
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot that someone can do that is, you know, at least peripheral to to what their expertise is in.
36:44
SPEAKER_01: And it's a great way to reinvent yourself um and create new interest in in your professional life, you know, for yourself.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: So and become a master of AI.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:54
SPEAKER_00: A master of AI with Excel.
36:56
SPEAKER_01: With I don't think I know anyone that's not taking courses in AI now.
36:59
SPEAKER_01: I think I'm probably the last one, but I really want to.
37:01
SPEAKER_01: I use it uh quite quite a lot.
37:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Nadim, that was really, really great speaking with you.
37:05
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
37:06
SPEAKER_01: Really, really cool to have you here.
37:08
SPEAKER_01: And um really wish you the best, best of luck with Event Lab and Mystica.
37:15
SPEAKER_01: Looking forward to watching the news, uh uh, you know, break the news spotlights and all of that.
37:22
SPEAKER_01: So thank you very much.
37:23
SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much.
37:24
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
37:24
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.