“There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.” -Douglas H. Everett
There are extraordinary party planners who create events that draw crowds in the hundreds through a combination of great music, enticing venues and eye-catching acts; and then there are corporate event organizers. While each needs to draw a crowd and make sure guests have one hell of a time, the latter of the two needs to deliver on a much larger scale. Providing an unforgettable experience to thousands of people compared to a mere hundred is an arguably more challenging feat, but it is one that Parisian corporate events organizer Nathalie Woog excels at at a global level.
Nathalie Woog founded Paradise Events in 2015, and has organized roughly 20 events in Florida, for high-profile clients and companies in the fields of advertising, design, finance, and insurance, as well as a host of other prestigious organizations. In recognition of her achievements and standing as a business leader in her field, Nathalie Woog was recently selected to join the Forbes Business Council. An invitation-only organization, the Forbes Business Council is a high-profile professional community that brings together the most successful entrepreneurs and business leaders in the world. In order to be considered for acceptance, one has to be a proven owner, founder, or executive leader of a business who has generated at least $500,000 USD in annual revenue or funding.
Though Woog has clearly reached an astounding level of success in her field, with her acceptance into the Forbes Business Council being a mere one of the several accolades that reveal her shining reputation, creating innovative and unforgettable events is more than just a job for her, it is an art form and a challenge that never gets old.
“I take this quest to organize innovative events more as a challenge, as a challenge to be taken up every time. There is never a rest, because when an event is held, you have to think about the next one, which must be even more innovative,” explains Nathalie Woog.
“I need to be amazed at every event. If I am not, then the event is not innovative. So I keep my eyes open all the time, I’m interested in everything that’s going on around me and I try to imagine possible combinations, with all the suppliers I come across, in each place I walk through, to find the unique concept that will hit the bull’s eye.”
Nathalie Woog launched her career as a leading events director for the French multinational technology consulting and engineering company Alten in 1996. There, she spent nearly two decades knocking people’s socks off with the large scale events she created for the company, which employs over 25,000 people and has offices in 25 countries.
When it comes to throwing large scale corporate events, the planner behind the scenes takes into account everything from the range of clientele the event is targeting to the personality of the brand and how to creatively meet the desires of both. But Nathalie Woog does more than just meet their desires, she brings a special kind of wow factor to every event that she creates. Doing more than just drawing in attendees, Nathalie Woog makes audiences feel like her events are something they cannot miss and ensures that they’re remembered long after they’ve passed.
“I always ask myself how to get as many participants as possible to join and participate in a particular event. How can I obtain general satisfaction on each of my events?,” explains Nathalie Woog. “I usually draw inspiration from my environment. I’ve always loved the world of shows and dance in all its forms. The performance of the athletes and especially the innovation, precisely in the shows and their staging … I have this ability to marvel every time I see a show, as children do, and I think that you have to look at your whole environment with children’s eyes to always keep this state of wonder.”
Initially, Nathalie Woog began as the corporate events director for an Alten subsidiary, but before long she was managing the events for 12 separate Alten subsidiaries, a role that led her to create events around the globe. Her talent for bringing together top-tier talents to recreate iconic spaces and deliver mesmerizing events placed her in a tier of her own.
Over the years, Nathalie Woog has created, managed and overseen events at some of the world’s most prestigious venues, such as the Grand Palais in Paris in France, where her event garnered more than 5,000 attendees, as well as at The Zenith de Paris, The International Paris Air Show Bourget, The Eiffel Tower, The Opéra Garnier, The Palais de Tokyo, The Louvre, The Musée d’Orsay, The Coupole du Printemps Haussmann, The Cirque d’Hiver, The Château de Versailles, Chantilly, Cirque Phenix, The Fouquet’s, Chez Maxim’s, L’Atelier des Chefs, The Musée National des Invalides, and more.
“Since I was a child, I have always been attracted to going out, discovering new places, finding original activities to do, discovering friendly and festive places and above all, meeting many people and socializing,” admits Nathalie Woog. “I’m always in search of exceptional places to organize events, conventions, seminars, evenings, conferences, fairs, and incentive travel.”
In addition to having an expansive contact list that includes many of the most well-known venues across the globe, Nathalie Woog has an eye for talent, and she’s inexhaustibly on the lookout for the next big act to include in her events. Over the years, she’s managed to recruit internationally in-demand acts for her events, such as Gad Elmaleh, Bérengère Krief, Jérome Daran, Dany Boon, French actor Donel Jack’sman, Verino, Eric et Ramzy, Fary, Michael Guez, Jean Marc Dumontet Productions, Jerome Sordillon and Michael Levinas, and more.
“The choice of location remains a must for me. Choosing prestigious, mythical or inaccessible places to open to the public is my motto. One of my private events held at the Grand Palais de Paris in 2008, for 5000 people, was just incredible because it was very difficult to imagine such a grandiose place transformed for one evening into a private reception and scripted for 5000 people,” explains Nathalie Woog. “The adrenaline you feel every time you start an event is something exhilarating. And of course, the thanks of the participants at the end of each event is always very rewarding.”
For Nathalie Woog, who has established a shining reputation as a leading corporate events organizer over the past two decades, throwing unforgettable events is what makes her heart sing. Hailing from Paris and born into a family of artists, Nathalie Woog discovered early on what connotes creative appeal and it shows in her work. Something unique about her story is the fact that in her early 20s she was diagnosed with incurable Leukaemia, and though none of her doctors thought she would survive, she proved her fighting nature.
“It was then in shock, and with courage, that I decided to fight with strength and conviction, having only one objective in mind–surviving and living to achieve great projects,” recalls Nathalie Woog. “To the general surprise of the medical profession, I won my one year battle for life, and decided to use this experience where I came close to death, as a personal force, to lead in my wake, all the people who would now be with me, in order to disperse the joy of living.”
After beating Leukemia, Nathalie Woog dedicated her life to following her passion, which centers around brightening the lives of those around her, something she’s managed to achieve through her work in the events sector. Through her work as an events specialist creating large-scale international events for huge international companies, Nathalie Woog’s innovative approach and continued success has led her to establish a shining reputation over the past 15 years. With a reputation that precedes her, her role has extended beyond creating events to the point where other leaders in the industry turn to her as a consultant for advice when organizing their own events.
While working with Alten, Nathalie Woog has regularly been invited as a judge for various opportunities for the organization where she was part of the jury in charge of selecting the best events and event service providers. She was also the lead reference for the company when it came to establishing specialized guidelines for organizing the company’s events, which were disseminated throughout the organization’s team of communication professionals and ushered her into a speaking role at conferences where she has shared her knowledge of the industry with others.
Nathalie Woog adds, “I also had the privilege of presenting at conferences in universities throughout France, exposing the best practices in the field of event communication.”
In 2015, Nathalie Woog started her own event company, Paradise Events, in Miami. Through Paradise Events, she has spearheaded numerous events, including those for EFAP ICART at Art Basel. In 2018, she facilitated the meeting of 10 world renowned artists during Art Basel Miami, where each of the artists painted live during the event in front of an audience of professionals in the artistic sector.
Nathalie Woog says, “During my 15 years of experience prior to founding Paradise Events, I was able to see all possible situations in terms of requests, customers, suppliers, management, and unforeseen events. You have to have a strong heart to face all these elements. You have to know how to manage stress, both your own and that of the people you work with, customers or suppliers.”
Based on her professional integrity and the significant impact she’s had in the field of events organization and management, Nathalie Woog was recently elected as the Vice President of Events for the 2020 Board of Directors for SITE, the Society for Incentive Travel, for the Florida and Caribbean Chapter. Founded in 1973, SITE is a professional association of 2,000 senior level members located in 90 countries, working in corporations, agencies, airlines, cruise companies and across the entire destination supply chain. With 29 chapters around the world, SITE is the only global organization dedicated to strengthening and supporting the incentive travel industry, and as such, the organization has gone to great lengths to fund research and establish guidelines on sustainable travel.
As the new Vice President of Events for the Florida and Caribbean Chapter, Woog’s role as a chapter leader places her in charge of promoting all of the events for her chapter and ensuring that they are educational, while also maintaining the ethical standards of what constitutes sustainable travel in today’s market.
“Being part of this association is a privilege because it gives me the opportunity to communicate with more than 2,000 personalities from the world of travel and events,” says Nathalie Woog. “I can bring all my knowledge in travel and events, all my expertise, give advice, and participate in many networking events, and organize interesting big events.”
While there are countless event organizers across the globe, there remain few that have made it to the point of creating events on the scale that Nathalie Woog has, so it’s no surprise that SITE chose her as the new Vice President of Events for their Florida & Caribbean Chapter.
At the end of the day, Nathalie Woog says, “My overall creative philosophy is to always have your eyes open, to be generous with others, to know how to give a person a chance, to let yourself be won over by emotions and to have the desire to pass them on to others, and finally, to have this constant desire to share, because happiness is above all to read it on the faces of others. That’s what matters most to me in the world.”
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