Ferring: Leadership Starts With You

Digital first empowers leader community to deliver ambitious growth strategy.

The Challenge

Enable 500 leaders to re-connect with Ferring’s strategy in a way that inspires and empowers employees to take a transformative vision forward.

The Approach

Entrusted to deliver Ferring’s first ever virtual event, we combined agile planning, creative content and digital expertise to produce a high-value experience.

Faced with fast-evolving Covid restrictions, we ran three concurrent event plans, which eventually culminated in a live studio broadcast from Switzerland, with additional contributors and leaders joining online from every corner of the world.

Working with Ferring, we developed the event theme: Leadership Starts With You. This was explored through a 3-day programme encompassing executive-led sessions, workshops and networking, filled with creative content designed to re-connect leaders with the vision. This included an executive team-created video which told a powerful story of a compelling future.

Workshops and networking opportunities encouraged idea and information sharing, with the ultimate goal of enabling every individual to play their part in delivering the strategy.

Collaboration was key and we ensured seamless delivery by co-ordinating teams, suppliers and speakers across multiple locations – from remote-leading rehearsals with the Swiss studio team, speaker coaching and tech support for contributors, to daily debriefs during the live event to share learnings and plan improvements.

The Result

A successful ‘virtual first’ for Ferring, with nearly 500 leaders participating live, across multiple time zones. Participant feedback was incredibly positive:

+90% felt inspired as a result of the event
97% felt the strategy was the right direction for Ferring
+80% left with specific actions to apply in their area of responsibility
All leaders aim to submit 30/60/90 day action plans within four weeks of the event

I would like to say a huge thank you to the Smyle team for what we have achieved over the past three months. Within an incredibly short timeframe, fantastic teamwork and agile working helped to deliver a first for Ferring; a successful global event that has had a positive and measurable impact on our leaders’ attitudes, beliefs, and actions.

Thanks so much for your collaboration, support, and commitment to solving problems and pivoting plans amidst everchanging COVID-19 restrictions. In the face of a number of challenges, be that content, technical or logistical, we found a way forward together and we truly felt like one team.
Bhavin Vaid - Head of Corporate Comms, Ferring Pharmaceuticals