Hg

Overview

Hg is a leading software and services investor and one of the largest private equity (PE) firms in Europe. In part, their success comes from a willingness to do things a little differently. “A traditional PE fund will acquire a business, may change the management team, and provide minimal operational support—they’re a bit more hands-off,” says Jessica Greenhalgh​, Head of Community & Portfolio Engagement. “Hg is committed to building organizations that change the way we all do business, through deep sector specialization and dedicated operational support. We partner with our portfolio businesses and see management teams as our peers. It's very forward-thinking.”

A big part of this partnership model involves fostering community and learning opportunities between the companies in Hg’s portfolio. That’s Jessica’s domain. She not only runs Hg’s online community—“Hive”—a platform connecting over 2,000 C-suite level executives and managers, but also hosts events throughout the year where people come together to network and exchange ideas. These events range from monthly hangouts, Data Analytics forums, to HR and Talent summits, to roundtable events for CEOs. “We facilitate peer-to-peer collaboration,” says Jessica. “This allows Hg to foster an expert community that shares our collective Hg IP and activates a world-class support network of collaborators that delivers tangible value impact to our portfolio. It then becomes a desirable resource to prospect management teams.” But when the pandemic struck, she had to completely rethink her events strategy.

Challenge

When everything first shut down, Jessica leaned hard on her existing online resources, setting up a COVID-19 community on the Hive platform and hosting webinars. But by summer 2020, she could tell she was beginning to lose her audience’s attention. “Everyone had video call fatigue,” she says. “Initially in the spring when people joined our webinars, everyone had their camera on, everyone was present. Now their cameras were off. They were multitasking, so we did not have their full attention.”

“We wanted to make it an experience—not just a virtual event.”

With a big HR and Talent Summit on the horizon and other virtual events soon to follow, Jessica knew she wanted to do better. “These summits are longer, so we knew we needed to make them more engaging,” says Jessica. “We wanted to make it an experience—not just a virtual event. I was on a mission to find a really differentiated virtual events platform, continually trying to raise the bar even in a pandemic, and lead the way for our portfolio.”

Solution

To find the best solution, Jessica evaluated 36 (yes, 36) different virtual events platforms. “What I was finding was a lot of them had nice user interfaces, but they were all more or less the same on the inside when it came to the video experience,” says Jessica. Nevertheless, she kept up the search, and her persistence paid off. 

“When I landed on the Welcome platform, I knew it was a game-changer.,” she says. “When you first get there, you've got a slick entry point, really nice looking user interface and flow to the site. You then go through and you've got the main auditorium where you come on stage. You can feel the anticipation—it’s like when you go to the cinema and there’s the pre-roll announcing the feature presentation.”

“When I landed on the Welcome platform, I knew it was a game-changer.”

She loves how easy it is to navigate inside the Welcome platform. “It’s really user-friendly,” she says. The graphic overlays were also a big selling point. “I liked that you don’t have to do a typical slide show,” she says. “The graphic overlays look like a fantastic finish, making it feel like a sleek, professional summit, rather than something more DIY.” Other hits included the ability to white-label the platform to make it feel like Hg’s brand and the photo booth (“obviously, that’s a lot of fun,” she says).

But what really clinched it for her was the attendee experience. “With other video conferencing platforms, people were turning off their videos when they came on,” she says. “I think the reason was, even though we're not all presenting, we all felt like we were on stage and it wasn't relaxing or easy to watch. The thing about Welcome is, we don't have people on camera all the time, which means that it's nice for them to come and have a TV experience and watch the show—and participate when they want to.”