Leading global event agency, iLUKA has left CSM Sport &
Entertainment following an amicable separation, triggered by a management buyout.
Rebranding as The iLUKA Collective, former Managing Director, Felicity Shankar will
assume the role of CEO, with iLUKA founder and former CEO, Jon Hillman moving into the
position of Chairman. effective immediately.
iLUKA was founded in 1991 and has been part of the CSM group of companies since 2012.
This new approach to the iLUKA business will allow for a more flexible operating
infrastructure responding to today’s needs of the global events industry.
The separation from CSM Sport & Entertainment will allow The iLUKA Collective to remain
focused on its core business capabilities in the expert and niche area of hospitality strategy,
brand experience, and onsite operations for marketing partners and key stakeholders of the
Olympic and Paralympic Games, Rugby World Cup, Commonwealth Games, FIFA World
Cup and other global mega events.
Rebranding under a new name and visual identity, The iLUKA Collective will further develop
its "contractor community" business model, that seeks to entrench The iLUKA Collective as
the platform for the world’s best global mega event strategists, creative minds, partnership
experts and operational consultants to deliver services individually and collectively.
"The global events industry is certainly operating in unprecedented times," says Felicity
Shankar, CEO of The iLUKA Collective. "To maintain and build on our position as one of the
leading global mega events agencies in the world meant an evolutionary and innovative stepchange in the way we approach our work. We appreciate that our clients have significant
choice about the agency partners they want to work with, and we want the best results for
the clients who choose to work with The iLUKA Collective. We have a strong track record
and believe we are the best at what we do across a very niche area of capabilities, so under
our new model, we plan to be more selective in who we work with, ultimately doing more
work for less clients. Attracting the best talent to deliver the exceptional experiences we are
known for is increasingly important. The iLUKA brand has always been synonymous with
innovation. So, whilst it would be easy to "press pause" during these unprecedented times,
we are grateful for the time and opportunity to really conceive and deliver the agency model
of the future. Our ambition is that The iLUKA Collective should be a true "collective" of the
world’s best event people, creative minds and agency experts, centralized under one brand
and placed into the service of clients who can derive business value from their niche
experience."
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Registered Office: The iLUKA Collective Ltd., iLUKA House, 16 High Street, Hampton Wick, London, KT1 4DB, UK
Company Registration No: 12843493 VAT No: 358309675
"I call this a win/win/win scenario," says Jon Hillman, founder and Chairman. "We learnt a
great deal during our time inside the CSM structure and we remain great friends, but attaining
our independence is good for everyone. We’ve never been a conventional operation, not the
least because of the cyclical nature of major events. And we are not working in conventional
times either - gone are the days where clients are okay with agencies passing on costs for
large overhead expenditures for maintaining real estate and such. As a global community,
we have recently proven that the benefits of allowing people to do what they do best, on a
remote basis is more than achievable and that really works for our industry. Our separation
gave us the opportunity to reconceive a mega event agency model for the world of today –
and so we have. Under the new iLUKA Collective model, we are able to deliver a leaner,
more agile business model staffed with experts to the clients we work with. People doing
what they love and do best, and clients only paying for what they use. Everyone wins."
The iLUKA Collective will maintain a core expert Central Services team at Head Office, led
by newly appointed Managing Director, Paul Simon with multiple global consultants already
in place managing existing major client accounts and contracted project work for 14 clients
including TOP Partners and commercial affiliates, governing bodies, broadcasters and other
official stakeholders of the next 3 global mega events
The iLUKA Collective will continue operations out of its already established Host City offices
in Tokyo and Beijing on approach to the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games in those
markets. The Paris and Qatar operating infrastructure will be in place by the spring of 2021.
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