Fractional Leadership & Team Structuring

From Booth to Boardroom: Representing Samsung Electronics and the Strategic Power of B2B Event Presence

What happens when you’re not just managing a brand’s presence at an event? but becoming the face of it?That’s the question I had to answer when I stepped into a visible role representing Samsung Electronics at industry events across Europe. Not just as a speaker or marketer, but as a strategic bridge between product, positioning, and partnership.
And as I’ve discovered time and again since then — whether for startups or multinational tech firms — your event strategy is never just about the event. It’s about market presence, executive trust, and narrative control.
Let me explain.

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Why Representation at Events Still Matters in 2025

In a world that’s increasingly digital, remote, and flooded with on-demand webinars, it’s tempting to downplay the importance of physical presence.
But here’s the paradox: the more virtual our world becomes, the more powerful strategic presence feels in person.
When representing Samsung, it wasn’t about smiling at a booth or handing out flyers. It was about:
- Reading the room: Who’s leaning in during the keynote? Who’s asking technical questions? Where are the buyers hanging out?
- Orchestrating influence: Ensuring alignment between the public story (presentations, panels) and the private one (1-on-1 meetings, corridor talks).
- Closing loops: Turning feedback from the field — partners, resellers, even competitors — into valuable insights that shaped future campaigns.

Industry
Technology and Electronics
Location
Belgium
Services Used
Representation at events and external forums

Lessons from Samsung: What B2B Brands Often Miss

Here’s what many marketing teams (even well-funded ones) get wrong about events:
1. They outsource the message to “booth staff” or junior marketers.
   ➤ At Samsung, I was often the most senior marketing person on site, guiding the story in real-time.
2. They treat events as one-offs.
   ➤ We treated them as a strategic listening post: Which messaging resonates? Which offers fall flat? Which competitor narratives need countering?
3. They forget the power of presence.
   ➤ My role wasn’t just visibility, it was credibility. A familiar, competent face who could navigate tech, talk strategy, and represent leadership.

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B2B Event Representation: More Than Just Speaking

Here’s what “representing your brand at events” actually means when done right:
- 🎤 Speaking with clarity: Not over-polished slides, but memorable, relevant messages that buyers recall post-event.
- 🧭 Navigating complexity: From vendor lock-in discussions to EU data regulations, these conversations often go deeper than surface-level demos.
- 🔄 Building trust loops: A handshake from someone with deep product knowledge and strategic insight carries 10x the weight of a brochure.

The Impact Beyond the Event Floor

Samsung didn’t just send me out for visibility. They saw it as embedded brand building. And it worked.
After each event:
- We refined positioning for our digital campaigns.
- Internal sales teams had stronger, sharper narratives to build on.
- We identified new partnership opportunities — often from unexpected verticals.
In short: event representation became a competitive advantage.

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Can Smaller Teams or Scale-Ups Do the Same?

 Absolutely, and I’ve since done the same for firms like Destiny, Altran, and others. Whether as a Fractional CMO or interim advisor, I guide companies to:
- Turn one event into a six-month content engine
- Empower leadership to become visible voices
- Align field insights with boardroom strategy

Final Thought: Representation Is Not Delegation

So here’s my challenge to you, whether you lead marketing for a SaaS scale-up or an industrial powerhouse:

Are you showing up as the face of your brand or just shipping roll-up banners?

 Because in B2B, who shows up matters as much as what you show.
And if you need a partner who doesn’t just advise from the sidelines, but steps onto the floor with you?
You know where to find me.

Appendix: Expanded Timeline of Events Represented

- Samsung Partner Day 2013 – “The Opportunity of Large Display Solutions”
- Distributor Event: Meet IT 2014
- ISE 2014 – Included VIP hosting package
- IFMA Belgium Chapter Presentation
- Multiple smaller, dedicated partner events

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Digital Transformation

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Quality resourcing

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Samsung

Journey Through B2B Event Leadership at Samsung Electronics

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🔍 The Product That Wasn’t (Yet)

Product Marketing was under pressure around the quality of the content being created. Digging deeper, it became clear the friction wasn’t about words—it was about clarity of value. The Product Manager, brilliant and driven, had just stepped into his first PM role. We’ve all had a “first time,” and he was eager to learn.

So I connected him with Andrew Dickenson from Product Focus and got him into a comprehensive PM training program. That investment paid off—but not just in upskilling.

Toward the end of the training, I asked him to co-host a value proposition design exercise based on Alexander Osterwalder’s Strategyzer framework. What we discovered together was revealing:

We might not have had a “product” in the SaaS sense at all.

What we had was a highly technical team—engineers who’d go into customer environments and rewrite code for bespoke playback setups. A powerful capability, yes, but more aligned with outsourcing than a scalable solution. That insight became a turning point.

Shortly after, Product made the strategic decision to pivot. A new product vision was born—designed from the ground up, shaped by market insight and business model clarity.