VIP Ghana Investment Summit

Location: London

Attendees: 1600 over two days

VIPs: The Vice President, and President of Ghana

When I was asked to host the Ghana Investment and Opportunities Summit, both excitement and fear struck me at the exact time.

Why? Because 800 people were expected to attend each day over two days, that is 1600 eyes looking directly at me, and I was even being given the privilege of introducing His Excellency the Vice President of Ghana… I couldn’t get this wrong! What if I mispronounce someone name, I would be called the dread term Ghfaken (fake Ghanaian). Furthermore, what can I do to keep people in both in the room and interested?

I have been to so many professional conferences, where the highlight for most attendees is lunch and networking, few people cared about what panellist had to say. If it is not directly related to them, then they just didn’t care.

The pressure was on! To get up-to-date on the latest facts, figures and case studies and be able to explain this to who doesn’t know where Ghana is. After hours and hours and weekend of weekends of prep, the day was upon me.

I walked in the room, and there were a lot of chairs, and those chairs would soon contain bodies, bodies with eyeballs, all looking at me.

I was given the tap on the shoulder to start proceedings. As I walked to the podium, I thought, do I play it safe like every other conference, or just be me and deal with the consequences, or as we say in Ghana the quencey-quences.

I went with the latter, and my speech featured a challenge to get 10 investment deals done that day, a forced group selfie that included the Vice President and jokes that made the conference erupt in laughter. Mission accomplished! The room was packed for two whole days 9-6pm.

What I learnt from hosting that conference was:

Go with your gut, if you feel it isn’t the right time to say something don’t say it even if it is in the script. If you a joke pops into your head and it will lighten the mood then perform the joke to the best of ability. If you don’t take yourself too seriously even people in suits will loosen their ties …well a little bit.

“ML-Q is the only host that I know that can make 800 people stay in the room for fear of missing out, rather than go to the foyer to network. He had the conference in the palm of his hands”

Paul Akwaboah - Conference Organiser