As Group Venues Director – EMEA, Sacha plays a pivotal role in ensuring the seamless delivery of financial, operational, and service excellence across all Encore’s venues within the EMEA region. With an impressive track record spanning over 22 years, Sacha is a seasoned professional in Event Marketing and Business Management, leaving a trail of success both regionally and globally.

Sacha has been with Encore since 2012, where he oversaw the Madinat Jumeirah as their Director of Event Technology while leading their Financial Oversight and Sales Strategy regionally. Formerly, Sacha was Managing Director of Project X Productions, a full-service event production company that specialises in creatively and strategically aligning production brands and value to client needs. During his time with Project X, he oversaw and managed all business activities, projects and sales while having complete responsibility for financial oversight and reporting, developing Project X from a local start-up to a national leadership presence within the event management marketplace.

Des McEwan is Chief Financial Officer for the EMEA region, with the Finance, IT and Legal teams reporting to him.

Des is a trusted partner to the broader leadership team for all aspects of the company’s business providing strategic, analytical and business support. He leads the development of the group’s strategic plan each year and plays a pivotal role in future M&A activity – through origination and deal flow, business case preparation, financial modelling, executive team presentations into post transaction integration.

Prior to joining the Encore, Des held Group Financial positions over the last seven years within ITE Group PLC, more recently as CFO and has managed multiple acquisitions over the years, following an initial 10 years with Deloitte.

Fiona is a customer-focused, strategic leader with extensive international industry experience, gained both in commercial roles with global hospitality brands and as a Partner in hospitality consultancy. She has deep, cross-functional expertise in sales, meetings & events and distribution, as well as a passion for innovation. Fiona is responsible for leading the Encore EMEA Commercial strategy, driving International growth. Heading up Encore’s Sales and Marketing teams, her role is to ensure our customers have exceptional event experiences and that we deliver value for our strategic partners.

Prior to joining Encore, Fiona headed up Sales Operations for Hilton across Europe. Fiona holds an MA (Cantab) from Cambridge University in Modern Languages.

Simon Wood joined Hawthorn over 20 years ago when the company employed only 5 people, rising to Director of Projects, responsible for Production and now holds the position of Group Production Director, EMEA.

Simon is responsible for identifying, assessing and further developing Encore EMEA’s production capabilities and developing a consistent set of production offerings that represents the depth and breadth of the company’s capabilities.

Originally trained in stage management, Simon worked in theatre and television before moving to corporate events with Hawthorn, where he built up a solid client base of agencies over the years.

Amy Parkin joined Encore in 2021 and holds the position of Group HR Director, EMEA.

Amy is responsible for structuring and leading HR Centres of Excellence (CoE) across the EMEA region and ensuring the highest standards of learning & development within the EMEA team. Amy works closely with the EMEA Leadership Team to develop the organisational and people plans, ensuring alignment with Corporate and the International strategy, and spearheading our “Focus on You” strategy.

Prior to joining Encore, Amy held the role of Head of HR for a division of ABM Industries. She has over 18 years leadership experience within the aviation industry supporting Europe, Middle East and Asian regions, handling multiple acquisitions and organisational design projects across EMEA in that time period.

Amy holds a post graduate diploma in HR Management and is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (MCIPD).