Lord Digby Jones joins panel at DRPG conference

Lord Digby Jones was among the speakers at DRPG’s annual summer conference, which took place at Wyboston Lakes in Bedford, 15 July. The conference was attended by almost all 320 members of the DRPG team including the wider group. 

The jam-packed itinerary started with an outline of the next four years and the ambitions to grow and add further clients to its roster.

Following on, ‘The Big Debate’ was made up of 12 open sessions, encouraging free conversation across different issues that affect the business now and/or in the future. Topics varied from leadership to mental health to AI, all based on subjects developed from employee feedback.

Lord Digby Jones, who is on the DRPG board, joined Sam Wilson from Eco events, speaker and author David Meade and head of customer insight and innovation Callum Gill on a panel looking at the external influences and factors which will help or hinder the growth plan.

CEO Dale Parmenter commented: “It has been another great year for DRPG, and our conference is a great way for us to celebrate our many achievements together as a team and importantly look forward to our 40th Anniversary next year. We have already overtaken last year’s record performance of £31m and 2019 is stacking up to be another great year with our continuing global expansion with bases now in Ireland, Germany and the US as well as across the UK, and the huge multi-millionaire investment happening at HQ in the creation of our new creative, design and communication centre.”

The afternoon focused around the group’s values, bringing them to life with a series of interactive workshops, culminating with a powerful team exercise run by David Meade to build 45 prosthetic hands in the ‘Give a Hand’ programme. The hands will all be shipped to India and will be with recipients within two weeks.

“The summer conference is a fantastic chance for us to reflect on the year so far and get excited for the future, boosting our team and keeping the momentum going as we go into the penultimate quarter. With new collaborations, new challenges and new goals in the pipeline, we are constantly growing, and the conference offers us the chance to pause, reenergise and refocus on our objective of becoming the company of choice,” commented Parmenter.

The evening was a chance for the team to relax and socialise together at a drink’s reception followed by a dinner and entertainment all hosted at the beautiful Woodlands Event Centre venue. 

Dale added, “As a global group it is a rare opportunity to get the whole team together from around the world to share a fun day with a mix of work and play.”