Elephant to celebrate 10 Years

A con­sul­tan­cy that launched dur­ing the fall-out of the glob­al bank­ing cri­sis a decade ago and has also adapt­ed and grown dur­ing the recent COVID era — pro­vid­ing clients with heavy­weight advice at a crit­i­cal time.

A num­ber of clients and rela­tion­ships have been with us for the decade and we have decid­ed to join forces with the Roy­al Phil­har­mon­ic Orches­tra to cel­e­brate our mile­stone anniver­sary — run­ning our event with­in the major 75th anniver­sary sea­son of the RPO. The arts have been through a test­ing time dur­ing the lock­down era, so it also seems fit­ting to cel­e­brate the role cul­ture plays in soci­ety, as we all rebuild and recov­er after an unprece­dent­ed time.

On 26 April we will be run­ning an evening event for long­stand­ing clients, sup­pli­ers, part­ners and ele­phants at the Roy­al Fes­ti­val Hall and then enjoy­ing an RPO con­cert, fea­tur­ing the music of Beethoven and Vaugh­an Williams, led by the RPO’s Music Direc­tor, Vasi­ly Petrenko.

The choice of venue for our anniver­sary event also seems fit­ting. So many of our first meet­ings in our ear­ly months took place in or around The South­bank Cen­tre. The ear­ly days when every­thing was ahead. From those ear­ly days the con­sul­tan­cy has grown and matured, advis­ing clients across a wide range of indus­try sec­tors, inter­na­tion­al regions and across media channels.

And the falling away of COVID restric­tions is also a moment: A time to reflect on what we have all been through, the peo­ple we have not seen in per­son for months or years. And to remem­ber the loved ones we have lost. My father passed away a year ago and the con­cert will mark this and, coin­ci­den­tal­ly, the evening’s pro­gramme fea­tures my father’s favourite piece of music. We will take a shared moment dur­ing the evening to remem­ber those we have lost dur­ing lock­down, and the endur­ing spir­it of work col­leagues and loved ones we will cel­e­brate dur­ing the music.

For ele­phant, lock­down was a time of change. We adapt­ed as a busi­ness, ser­vices changed to reflect client needs and we adopt­ed new work­ing prac­tices that made us more agile, effi­cient and sus­tain­able. We fur­loughed no staff dur­ing these two years, lost no clients and actu­al­ly took on new briefs. The busi­ness evolved at a dark time and we re-emerge from the lock­down era in 2022 as a stronger, wis­er more resilient busi­ness. So, in some ways, our 10th anniver­sary evening cel­e­brates the past and looks for­ward to what we have become today — with our clients and partners.

We are not a showy agency; our focus is always on our client assign­ments and devel­op­ing our peo­ple. To mark 10 years of ele­phant, it feels fit­ting to run an evening with a client, to share the evening with peo­ple that have been part of our sto­ry so far — and to revis­it the place where it all start­ed. Full circle.

Guy Bel­lamy