The Human Touch in Event Management; what it takes to design and deliver great events for a modern workforce.

Oliver Ruebenkamp, Senior Lead, Event Management, at Zalando, joins Janine in the studio to discuss his pivotal role in planning and creating a huge range of events at Zalando.

First up, Oliver explains the responsibilities of his team, from organising internal workshops and all-hands meetings to coordinating external influencer marketing events. This peek behind the scenes of large-scale gatherings shows the value of both meticulous planning and being prepared to forget the plan and embrace improvisation.

Oliver and Janine then dive into the Summer of Sports events, Zalando engagement projects aimed at bringing colleagues together. Oliver shares the lessons he’s learned orchestrating these events, from always having a back-up location reserved to why the leadership team should always work as bar-staff.

Oliver’s three “Pieces of Me” include his trusty tennis racket, a nod to his lead, Alex Goertzen, who has been a significant influence in his career, but controversially, not his dogs.

To find out more about careers like Oliver's at Zalando visit jobs.zalando.com.

Transcript

JANINE 

Hello and welcome to Piece of Me, the podcast by Zalando. I'm Janine Matos, your host and Senior Portfolio Manager for Zalando Technology Foundation here at Zalando. In each episode, I welcome an inspirational expert from Zalando to take a deep dive into the fashion and tech retail industry. They also share lots of practical tips and what you should dare to do more to help you on your own career and work journey. By the way, if you're interested in careers at Zalando, click the link to our job page in the show notes.

Each guest brings in three items as they reveal their motivation, stories and what they've learned along the way. A piece that is close to their heart, one from their career and one from their time at Zalando.

So let's get started with my guest today who is Oliver Rübenkamp, Senior Lead Event Management. 

Hi Oliver, nice having you today here. How are you? 

OLIVER

I'm fine, thank you. Thank you for having me. 

JANINE

I know you brought three items or three pieces as every guest brings in. What is the close to your heart? 

OLIVER

So the close to the heart item is my tennis racket, a Babolat Aerospace. 

JANINE

And what is your career item?

OLIVER

My career item is the badge from the last Zalando party at Templehof Airport in 2019. 

JANINE

I couldn't attend to that one, but looking forward to why you brought that as your career item. And what is your Zalando item? 

OLIVER

My Zalando item is not a real item, but I probably have brought my lead Alex Goertzen with me. I will explain later.

JANINE

Okay, that's the first one. Looking forward also to the behind why you would have brought Alex. But before we actually find out more about those three items, I would really like to know more about your role and your team and what kind of events you and your team actually plan or even support planning.

OLIVER (01:59.566)

So in total, we are six colleagues in event management and we are in charge for all events Zalando is organising. The workshops are the all-hand meetings taking place here at the campus. So we have 26 internal event spaces. On top, we are in charge for the AGM, the annual shareholder conference, one of the most important events for the company. Then of course, the Zalando Summer Garden party.

And furthermore, we are in charge and organising together with the colleagues from the marketing activities in the European markets, influencer marketing events, for example, the event two weeks ago in Madrid, just to give an example. 

JANINE

So you also support events that are outside of Berlin.

OLIVER

Yes, if there's like something in Madrid, you as a team, make sure that you plan everything beforehand, fly on site and support there.

Yeah, so most of the time we are working with external agencies because of course it's helpful to have a local partner, but most of the time we are taking over most of the logistical part of the organisation. 

JANINE

Is there like a minimum size where you support or is it depends on the room that people want to book for those events? 

OLIVER

We have a huge variety of different events at Zalando, starting with one -to -one meetings where someone needs to book one of the meeting spaces on the 23rd floor at the BHW building, for example. And this will be managed through our booking tool, Evento. You cannot organise event only ticket generated. There's always a human touch behind it where you have questions, where meeting owners reach out to you and ask, I need an additional flip shot or whatever. And of course, this is something we manage. So, to answer your questions from two to 5 ,000 people. We are also in charge for the so-called fun and bonding events where you can spend time with your team for a boat tour, for a restaurant visit or something similar. And then we have the team events, always business related, like a team workshop followed by a team dinner, also by a boat tour.

JANINE (04:17.452)

The team events are more business related and the fun and bonding events are more fun events to bring teams together. The majority booked the boats and I have no idea how many boats we rented over the years here in Berlin. So between May and September, it's the high season for boat tours. 

JANINE

I do have to say my old team, we did a team event on the boat. So as I told you, done that in there, done that it's a check mark. But then of course you have, as mentioned before, bigger events like this summer, actually your team and also some other team people have set up the summer of sports event. Tell me more about it. 

OLIVER

It's part of our engagement projects to bring colleagues to the campus to come together, which is from my point of view, more important than ever after pandemic and after all those hard times because we were growing so fast and working in the home office is not very helpful to bring teams together. So this is why we created those engagement projects where the summer of sports events are part of it. So for example, we set up one of those big screens in our headquarter at the Atrium, streaming, for example, the football and on top we have activities like our employee football tournament, also a volleyball tournament where different teams can compete. I guess we had a wonderful afternoon. Actually, I don't know how many teams joined. I guess it was something like 20 teams. 

JANEIN

I remember also the volleyball tournament was nearly going to be canceled because there was a warning for thunderstorm.

OLIVER

This is the story of an event manager. So this is something you always have to deal with even if you have events on the one of our roof terraces where you also have a plan B in place means we always have to book in addition one of the indoor spaces and was the same with the volleyball. Actually, the idea of the summer of sports events or engagement events came from Robert Gantz after our last summer garden event because he was so impressed from the atmosphere we had there and bringing people together. So he reached out to us to create more of those moments to bring in people together. And that's why we came up with the idea of the monthly Sunset Socials, one of our after work events. 

So we started in January with the first, as always when you send out those invitations, you always have to calculate with a no show rate with people who’d do not answer their invitations. at the end, 300 people showed up. Of course, we have to make a security check to make sure that only colleagues are entering the building. It was crowded, but it was a success. And after that, we decided to move to the BHQX building, to the Arterium. So we heard from colleagues, it looks a little bit like the Berghain, which makes me a little bit proud to create an atmosphere of a club, of a well -known club in one of our office buildings. And you can imagine it's not that easy to set up an event during working hours with catering, with technical equipment, with sound system, or the light installations. So these are some challenges we manage quite well. And the atmosphere was great.

JANINE

I was at the second or third sunset. And I thought it was amazing. It was really well done. I mean, it's always also difficult for a caterer to have food for so many people that it's so warm and taste. And I thought for that, it was really good. I was really happy to actually see that you had different drinks, making really something special out of it. And you give actually a stage also to employees who are DJs.

OLIVER

It's all covered by internals, so a big, big, big thank you to all those colleagues who performed there. The DJs were amazing, so that's why we have the space to play their music. And on top, we opened the auditorium for Karaoke. At the end of the Sunset Social, this was one of the most frequent rooms and even the air conditioning was not able to work against the number of people entering the auditorium. And it was a great atmosphere. Cheering the team up. I mean, I do think you're doing a great job. And I'm looking forward to the Summer Garden that you're right now already planning. We talked about it before. We got the invitation. And it's again a huge event in September coming. 

JANINE

Tell me more. What does this mean for your team to actually plan this even for 4,000 people or how many?

OLIVER

4,000. So that's why we are quite happy that we found Kulturbrauerei as our venue, because I guess it's matching with the Zalando vibes. The venue is great. We have indoor possibilities. We can cover the courtyard with those big tents with the light system there, which creates a perfect atmosphere. Organising such an event for my team is a highlight of the year because we are working more in a creative way, are without help from any agency. So means all the ideas are coming from my team to fulfill the different wishes of our colleagues. So we have those room with the arcade games where you can play. Then we have the DIY stations for creativity. Of course, we have the catering. We have a great entertainment program. 

So last year, you remember all the bands on stage. There were amazing musicians and while I was painting, there was this big band actually marching next to me. was like, what's happening here? What's coming next? 

JANINE

I was first concerned because it was during the day, like it's going to be over by 10. It was such a great event, eating and drinking in different stations, dancing classes. You had karaoke. I thought it was so well thought through and well planned. You had for everyone something and when I saw what's going to be again in a culture power, I was like, as you said, I guess there's a big variety for everyone. And if you do not want to follow the activities, so just enjoy the chat with your colleagues or visit our bar where the management board is serving the drinks. Are they doing it again? 

OLIVER

Yes, of course. So it's a must have. 

JANINE

So it's a tradition?

OLIVER (11:11.146)

It's a tradition. We want to have it. We want to serve the drinks. And I guess it's a perfect moment to get in touch with the management board, as we all know they're quite open for those things.

JANINE (11:26.754)

Looking into your pieces and the close to your heart, you did tell me you actually want to bring your dogs, but now you choose your tennis racket. Do your dogs know that you chose your tennis rackets above? 

OLIVER

No, I haven't told them. I guess they would be quite annoyed. So they're in the neighbour building at the moment. So my team is taking care of them. But the reason is that one of the dogs, so Max is the older one. He's nine years now and Puppy is a smaller one. Puppy is three months old. that's nice. know it's quite funny. for the non -German speaking, it's kind of like a small doll, the name. That's nice name. So, okay, so you have Puppy who is like still a baby. She's a baby and she's completely under fire. So I'm awake since 4 .30 in the morning because at 4 .30 usually she's bored and wants to go out.

But that's why I decided to bring my tennis record with me. I bought a new Babolat Aerospace in the hope that I can now play like Carlos Alcaraz. It's wishful thinking, according to my age, I'm sure. But I love Carlos Alcaraz and the way he's playing. And I'm a passionate tennis player in my free time playing tournaments. so that's why I decided to bring my record with How long have you been playing tennis? Well, I started when I was nine.

Then several breaks according to job related breaks, but now I'm constantly playing since six years. 

JANINE

So maybe if you wouldn't have had those breaks, maybe you would have been the next Carlos Alcaraz?  Then we wouldn't have you here doing this great event. So we are thankful you'd had those breaks. 

OLIVER

Lucky me to be here.

JANINE

You have your dogs and then you play tennis, you do these amazing events. Do you still have free time? 

OLIVER

Tennis is free time, of course. So it helps me to calm down. And it's not in the way that I write names on the ball from enemies and hit the balls like ever. So, no, I'm quite relaxed there, but it helps me a lot. And furthermore, I countryside. So I live in Brandenburg. 26 kilometers away from the campus and I live in a forest with my own garden and with the dogs. So this gives me peace as well, which is quite important for me. It's always good to have something where you can hide and just to be yourself. 

JANINE

A little suggestion, if you have a garden, put Puppy now in the summer outside so she won't wake you up at four thirty anymore and can just run around the garden.

OLIVER

Yeah, but if you live in a forest in Brandenburg, you have to deal with other animals at night. So I'm not sure. Who could come and have Puppy for breakfast? 

JANINE

No! Keep puppy inside. 

OLIVER

Yes, exactly. Exactly. 

JANINE

Okay, let's move on to your next item. You said it's your badge. 

OLIVER

It's the badge from the last Zalando party at Templehoff Airport in 2019. It was a mega event for me and my team because in addition to organising the entire event, we also took care of the drinks handling. And we did it on our own. And I mean, you can imagine dealing with beverage service for 4,000 or 5,000 people without a caterer to take care of the delivery, to take care of the quantities of the single drinks, not to run out of drinks.

Actually we run out of the white wine, but we were able to manage it. Somebody went to the Spiti quickly bought some. I guess it was our hidden secret, but we did it on our own. That's why it's so important for me and connected to my career because I guess it's a great example that we are still a down to earth company with hands on mentality. And this is quite helpful for my daily business to remind me to such an event.

Though something ran out, just make sure you have a Plan B and that worked really well. 

JANINE

Now, your last and third piece, your Zalando piece, which is a human being, Alex Goertzen. Why did you decide to bring or not bring, but to mention Alex as your Zalando piece? 

OLIVER (15:58.754)

I thought our interview at the time was so good and authentic that I decided in favour of Zalando and that interview still guides me in my daily business when dealing with colleagues. And I still believe that we are doing a great job with talent acquisition when we are preparing our interviews with candidates. And we are so focused on details on giving the candidates a good feeling to avoid being nervous and I guess the quality of questions we are asking always have a human touch.

And think that we create a special moment in those interviews and this happened to me as well. And that's why I remember it. 

JANINE

That's really nice. And is Alex still at Zalando? 

OLIVER

Yeah, she's still my boss. 

JANINE

Yes. So that's nice to see how leadership still motivates you on a daily basis, let's say, and does not demotivate you. 

OLIVER

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's true. Yeah. 

JANINE

Okay. So but before we wrap up, Oliver, thank you so much for sharing your three piece but I gave you a little last challenge, which is what would you tell the audience they should dare to do?

OLIVER

It's to think big. I guess Sunset Social Events are the best example of this developing a new event concept efficiently and quickly, analysing learning from the first events immediately and consistently improving the concept. I'm quite proud of all of us who work on these event formats. And for me, it's the best example. 

JANINE

Amazing. Thank you so much. They're really great words. And you're right. You dare to think big and you manage to, and in future will manage to organise these great events that are bringing back Zalando's together and making this that we actually all feel again, like one big Zalando team, let's say. 

Thank you for being my guest today. Thank you all so much for listening. If you'd like to know more about careers at Zalando, go to jobs .zalando .de. You'll find that link in the show notes or check out our Instagram page inside Zalando.

Our next episode is coming in two weeks and I'll be talking to another guest from Zalando about life inside the fashion and tech retail industry. And of course, there are three pieces of me.