Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) Acknowledges the Traditional Owners of Narrm, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present, and to Elders of all First Nations communities that visit MCEC.

Two images side by side. On the left is a photo of a woman smiling at the camera. She has long brown hair and is wearing a black detailed blouse. On the right is a photo of a man smiling at the camera. He has short dark hair and is wearing a blue checkered shirt and black blazer.
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MCEC Snapshot: Meet the Team - CX Tribes

Meet the teams – and their leaders – working to provide our most efficient and enjoyable customer experience ever.

As part of our recent business transformation, MCEC has adopted a tribe model, organising our people into cross-functional teams or ‘tribes’, each consisting of a cross-section of members from complementary areas of the business i.e., planning, marketing, operations, tech. Each of our customers is aligned with a tribe and works with a single point of contact who co-ordinates every aspect of the event planning and delivery journey - from sales to ‘see you next time!’

In our new operations model, there are two customer experience tribes:

1. Professional Partnerships

These customers are in the business of producing events for others at a professional level. They have a diverse client base and could produce an event for international delegates one week, a trade exhibition the next and host a gala dinner for conference attendees the following. They need a trusted partner who understands the challenges of what they do.

2. Direct Partnerships

This tribe looks after customers whose core business is not event delivery, i.e., where organisations employ event organisers in-house and those whose events are led by someone whose day job has nothing to do with events – EAs, marketing managers, etc. This portfolio includes corporate, government, education, not-for-profit, and associations that use events to engage with their employees, consumers, members, supporters, and stakeholders.

By switching to a customer service model that’s organised around the customer, rather than the event, we’ve improved field expertise across every department, concentrating our expertise and increasing each team’s autonomy so we can respond to the needs of our customers faster, smarter and more efficiently This new way of working is designed to minimise roadblocks, dependencies, and unnecessary processes, increase transparency and ensure we’re delivering customer-centric solutions at every touchpoint. This, in turn, creates a culture that inspires innovation, lateral thinking and creative problem solving.

Our tribe heads - Kate Abbott and Neil Mather - act as team CEOs, focussing on value creation, growth and – most importantly – customer experience. They oversee and enable their tribes to provide exceptional event delivery end-to-end, no matter the size or scale of the event.

Kate Abbott

Head of Customer Experience, Professional Partnerships

A senior sales manager with more than 20 years’ experience in the industry, Kate has worked extensively with MCEC customers across all three previous segments. As a key member of the team that designed and created the new operations model, Kate understands better than most how this new cross-functional tribe model empowers our people to make the customer journey at MCEC more seamless than ever before, offering continual opportunities to reflect, improve and innovate. In her new role as head of CX tribe for Professional Partnerships, Kate is looking forward to helping her tribe – and our customers – get back to doing what they do best: delivering extraordinary events.

Neil Mather

Head of Customer Experience, Direct Partnerships

Neil is an experienced Senior Manager and has worked in leadership roles within Operations and Food and Beverage. Having worked in the hospitality and events sector for more than two decades, he is passionate about delighting customers and creating high-performance teams. Neil loves the thrill of planning and executing events and is looking forward to exploring the diverse opportunities, challenges and experiences of his new role.