Sophie Spencer has recently been promoted to Senior Events Manager in EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute’s Training team. We last interviewed her in late 2021, so let’s catch up with Sophie and see what she’s been up to since then.

Sophie Spencer, Senior Events Manager, EMBL-EBI. Image credit: Jeff Dowling/EMBL-EBI

We last spoke to you in 2021. What has changed for you in the last four years in the training team?

To be brief… a lot! I went from working solely on the Training team’s core programme to supporting EMBL-EBI’s Industry Programme Workshops in 2024. Most recently, I’ve stepped into the role of Senior Events Manager, where I now split my time between the Industry and Training teams at EMBL-EBI. This is the perfect blend for me – I get to work on a really dynamic portfolio of events that I’m passionate about, while reconnecting with the (fantastic) training team.

What part of the new role are you most excited about?

What I love about event management is that no two challenges are ever the same — you’re always finding creative ways to make things work. Now that I’m working across two teams, I get to see how different people approach things, and it’s really fun to bring those ideas together and find solutions that work for everyone.

On top of that, I now line manage two brilliant Event Officers, which is incredibly rewarding and adds a whole new dimension to my role.

Is there anything you are passionate about as an events professional you’d like to share with us?

I think that the events industry, but in particular event managers, have a real responsibility to make our events as sustainable as possible. This is something that I’ve cared deeply about throughout my career, and it’s exciting to see how fast things are evolving in this space.

Sustainability isn’t a one-and-done task – it’s constantly shifting as new technologies, ideas, and best practices emerge. Staying on top of these changes is essential, and that’s where collaboration really helps.

As part of my new role, I’ve been able to get involved with various steering groups across our EMBL sites, and the Wellcome Genome Campus to discuss sustainability. It’s been fascinating to learn from other teams about what they’ve been doing to ‘go green’ and taking ideas back to my teams.

And who knows, there might be a new free on-demand course about green computing popping up on the EMBL-EBI Training pages soon…

Tell us more about the EMBL-EBI Industry Programme.

It’s a really unique initiative we have here at EMBL-EBI. The programme brings together our Industry Partners to collaborate and share insights in a pre-competitive space. Our members include most of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies, as well as leading agri-food, nutrition, and healthcare organisations.

Each year, we host around 10 workshops, which collectively attract more than 2,000 participants. What makes the programme special is that the topics are chosen by our members, so every workshop focuses on real challenges and emerging trends that matter most to industry right now.

If you’re curious to learn more, I’d definitely encourage you to visit the Industry Programme website.

And finally, tell us something about you that people might not know?

That’s a tricky one… I wish I could say I was a secret Ironman champion or something equally impressive, but in reality, I’m much more of a parkrun kind of girl!

Something people might not know is that I’m a massive bookworm, and if I’m honest, a bit of a nerd. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched the extended edition of The Lord of the Rings, and I can’t resist a good epic fantasy. Brandon Sanderson is definitely my favourite author at the moment.