Sarah Thackray
Director
A linguist at heart and a perfectionist by nature. Originally from London, Sarah moved to Newcastle to study modern languages at Newcastle University. Having fallen in love with the region Sarah now lives on the coast with her two young sons.
Having previously lived and worked in both Spain and France, Sarah began her career in the North East as a relocation consultant with IBM. Strengths in project management and communication skills made for a natural transition into the events industry. Sarah has spent over 16 years working on a range of conferences and events across the UK as well as in the Middle East.
Holding PRINCE2 and Chartered Institute of Marketing qualifications, Sarah is an established and experienced events and conference specialist. Sarah is also Trustee of charity organisation Groundwork North East & Cumbria and Director of tech network Dynamo North East CIC.
Having delivered events in nearly every sector and industry, Sarah co-founded BeaconHouse Events in 2014. Sarah is an expert in event production with particular strengths in financial management, programme curation, proof reading and business strategy development.
Catherine Duhaut
Director
After exploring radio and television at University, an MSc in Project Management solidified a future in large-scale project management for Catherine. Working in event management since 2007, organising and running events across the UK.
Starting out specialising in the production of outdoor events helped to establish Catherine’s reputation for meticulous attention to detail and high-level management of complex projects. Referrals and recommendations soon opened opportunities to diversify the range of clients available and saw the creation of BeaconHouse Events.
In 2014, Catherine co-founded BeaconHouse Events and has since been focusing on attracting talent to bring together a fantastic, dedicated team to cope with the delivery of the growing event portfolio. BeaconHouse Events now delivers over one hundred events annually to a wide range of loyal clients, which Catherine manages alongside her continuing interest in developing new event ideas and business development.
Catherine has enjoyed working with clients across the medical, sport, technology, finance, automotive, scientific and media industries, managing large budgets and events for up to 24,000 attendees. 2019 saw Catherine join the A-List for industry professionals by C&IT.
catherine@beaconhouse-events.co.uk
Clare Nicholson
Account Manager
If you’ve attended an event hosted by BeaconHouse Events you’ll be well accustomed to our legendary warm welcome and tip-top customer service. Clare wrote the book on it! Working in customer service and events for twenty years across venues such as, Matfen Hall, Merchant Taylors Hall and Bateaux London makes her the perfect addition to head up our membership services.
Clare loves the fast-paced, dynamic environment of the industry where no two days are the same and she can be part of creating memorable experiences. Dynamites, an awards ceremony that Clare has led for five years has recently been shortlisted in the ‘Best Technology Award’ category at the national ‘Awards Awards’.
Sophie Flanagan
Event and Marketing Manager
Sophie brings over a decade of marketing and event experience to the team. Her studies in ‘Marketing and Management’ at Newcastle University along with a placement year in events launched her into an impressive seven-year career in the theatre and arts as a Marketing Executive.
Sophie joined BeaconHouse Events in 2017 as the Marketing and Event Manager, producing a wide range of events from film festivals to international medical conferences. When she’s not doing the do on events she’s working her magic on brand development for clients and BeaconHouse alike – if you see a snap you like on our social, Sophie was behind it. Her love of fashion and beauty makes Sophie the perfect lead on our creative events; as well as making sure we all dress to impress on events.
Katie Whitehouse
Event Manager
A staunch ‘boro supporter, Katie moved to Newcastle to be close to the grounds where her beloved football team play. Lucky for us her passion and enthusiasm doesn’t stop with the sport, we challenge you to meet anyone as focused as Katie – she puts her head down and gets through a task list at light speed.
Katie’s background from working in venue management makes her the perfect onsite manager, there is no problem she can’t find the solution to, her tireless energy and non-stop enthusiasm is welcomed when working with nervous speakers and anxious exhibitors. She’s the smile at registration and the force behind our recruitment, since starting at BeaconHouse Katie has developed a trusted pool of volunteers who share her work ethics and help make the events run seamlessly.
katie@beaconhouse-events.co.uk
Lewis Ridley
Project Administrator
Lewis joined BeaconHouse Events from award winning charity ‘The Wheels Project; he brings to the team a wealth of experience of data analysis and input skills. When Lewis isn’t checking the accuracy of his algorithms he’s applying his knowledge to his other love – football. Collecting thousands of data points Lewis has masterminded a game outcome predictor with a near 90% success rate!
Lewis has a natural aptitude for all things tech and you can usually find him working on refining a process or technique to improve the efficiency of a task. At BeaconHouse Lewis looks after the members of the North East tech community, Dynamo North East and supports them to grow, manages the database and helps with delivering events across Dynamo and the wider BeaconHouse portfolio.
lewis@beaconhouse-events.co.uk