18. May 2021

Behind the Scenes: What it Takes to Make H.U.G Happen

We made it! Thank you to all of our wonderful speakers and attendees of H.U.G Digital, Personio’s digital event for HR managers, recruiters, and decision makers.

H.U.G stands for "High-Impact Unconventional Gathering," and with over 5,500 attendees it’s our biggest event of the year! First held in 2019, H.U.G is a dual-track event: a German-specific track and a second, international version for English speakers. It also includes expert talks, panels, interviews, and interactive discussions in a build-you-own-adventure format.

Even though we’ve gone digital for the past two events in light of COVID, events like these still take a village to put together! Meet a few members of our H.U.G team and see how they’re putting our value of #Ownership in action:

Kathrin Gurtner | Marketing Manager – Events

My role within H.U.G is project lead, which includes project planning, budgeting, reporting, internal communication – the list goes on! I’m also responsible for organizing all of the main German and English programs and sourcing our speakers. During the actual event I manage our German livestream, stakeholders, and support our production company.

I’ve been part of the H.U.G journey from the beginning, back in 2018 when we first started making plans to host our own HR conference. This event feels like my baby! Myself and the core H.U.G team have poured so much work, effort, and passion into it. I love seeing all the hard work from the past six months come together on stage and sharing it with our attendees.

Nise Lutz | Senior Visual Communications Designer

I created the original visual designs for H.U.G back when our event team was only three people! Over the last year I’ve worked with my fellow designers and our web agency to refine those designs into what you see today. I’ve also designed a variety of assets for the event, like social media graphics, stage backdrops, app branding, and keynote presentations.

I’ve realized that I love the adrenaline that comes with a big event! It’s so motivating and makes me ultra productive. I also enjoy seeing all of our team’s work in action and watching some of the presentations from backstage.

Max Specht | Content Marketing Manager

Apart from being a co-host and moderating a handful of interviews at H.U.G, my behind-the-scenes work is all about ensuring that we spread the message far and wide! I create content that promotes H.U.G to help ensure people not only sign up, but are super excited to attend, too!

For me, I am most excited about how the content is going to help HR professionals prepare themselves for the future of work. This kind of conference isn’t simply about where we’ve been or the challenges we’ve faced, but where we’re going and how we’ll get there!

Helena Korff | Junior Marketing Manager – Events

In the lead-up to H.U.G I manage our event promotion, ensuring we get the word out on all channels, including PR and social media. During the event I’ve been managing the English livestream and supporting our production company, making sure everyone is in the right place at the right time.

What I enjoy most about working on this event is the #Teamspirit and teamwork! It’s especially evident in the last few days before the event, when everyone is supporting each other even though we’re all super busy.

Mari Buller | Content Marketing Manager

My role with H.U.G Digital is supporting the event team in defining messaging from brainstorm to creation, and writing the German copy for the H.U.G website and email campaigns. Aside from all the great cross-departmental work it allows me to do, it’s pretty great to see such a huge event coming together – especially seeing the speaker agenda fill up and the website completed.

Laura and Ellena — Laura (left) and Ellena enjoying the backstage life.

Ellena Mapas | Junior Marketing Manager – Events

Working with H.U.G this year was my first time helping to organize an online event, and it’s been awesome! I’m amazed by how creative everyone is, especially with making an online event feel exciting and colorful. The best thing about it so far has been seeing how all the puzzle pieces fit together in the end. Plus I have the nicest team, which makes everything even more fun!

Laura Weidner | Junior PR Manager

My responsibilities with H.U.G are creating content around the event and amplifying it on social media. Seeing the great content that our whole team produces makes me even more excited! But what I’m most excited about is actually getting to attend for the first time, as I’ve been appointed our behind-the-scenes photographer for post-event social media posts!