This post is part of the HopSkip Planner Spotlight Series where HopSkip spotlight’s planners across the industry to bring awareness of how they adapted to COVID-19, communicating and lessons learned and sharing how they are viewing the meetings and events industry in a post-pandemic world.

Name: Toyin Alaka

Company Name: National Commission on Correctional Health Care

Job Title: Director of Meetings

Years of Experience: 10+

How were you able to adapt during COVID-19 when the meeting and events industry got disrupted?

It was about 4 weeks before our conference that we realized that we would have to go virtual, luckily our conference app vendor had the capability to host a virtual conference so we used them.

As a planner, what was the number one thing you learned over the past year?

How to adapt and shift from what is pretty much a second muscle to planning conferences in a completely different way.

Is there anything you are changing in your planning process moving forward as a result of the pandemic?

I’m changing my thought process around how any new in-person conference post pandemic looks like. I’m allowing space for various options when it comes to the look and feel of a conference.

This post is part of the HopSkip Planner Spotlight Series where HopSkip spotlight’s planners across the industry to bring awareness of how they adapted to COVID-19, communicating and lessons learned and sharing how they are viewing the meetings and events industry in a post-pandemic world.