Some conferences are about sharing information. Others become a meeting place for ideas, ambition, and the people changing industries. The Global Woman Summit 2023 was very much the latter.
Held on 15–16 July, this was the seventh edition of a summit Mirela had been building since 2016. By 2023, it had become one of the UK’s best-known gatherings for women in business, with attendees traveling internationally to learn, connect, and create new opportunities.
The Woman Behind It
If you’ve spent any time around the UK’s women’s business community, you’ve probably come across Mirela Sula. Albanian-born and London-based since 2012, she is the founder and CEO of Global Woman Magazine and the Global Woman Club; a network that has expanded to chapters across multiple countries. Featured on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, Sky TV, London Live, Forbes, and The Guardian, she has written over ten books and received the Icon 2023 Award.
But beyond the recognition is years of consistency. Community isn’t something she talks about; it’s something she’s spent years building.
The Event: What We Were Walking Into
The Global Woman Summit is not your average conference, and it had a clearly defining theme: The Power of Women Shifting the World. When Mirela puts on an event, people come from everywhere, and they come with high expectations. The venue was the Plaza Suite at the Hilton London Tower Bridge, a large, flat-floored hotel event space on Tooley Street.
Our job was to transform it completely across one build day and manage the production across two full show days.
With weeks of planning already underway, we produced detailed floor plans for the Plaza Suite and worked hand-in-hand with the venue’s team, mapping out the design concept; stage position, speaker layouts, lighting positions, the control booth, subwoofer placement, uplighter spread, and safe cable runs, basically, how every part of the room would blend unanimously.
The Build
- The Stage: This was the first thing to go up. We customized and extended the venue’s existing stage with an additional deck, finishing it with a red carpet surface and black PVC skirting to create a premium platform. On stage, a sleek Perspex lectern was set up with a dedicated microphone to give the speakers a prominent focus.
- The Custom Backdrop and Set Wall: Following soon after; a fully branded installation with returns on either side and batten uplighting running behind the ground row. This gave the stage visual depth, ensuring the summit’s identity was perfectly framed and visible throughout the event.
