Claire Penny
Business Manager
First Gig:
A brilliant local band called Pang at Abingdon Gaol in the early 90's.
Proudest moment of your event career so far:
I've been lucky to have been able to support lots of different events in varying capacities in my career. This has ranged from fun filled Army Cadet weekends through to exclusive member tours at historic places for English Heritage so it's very hard to pick a favourite!
However, the delivery of the 2023 National Trust Leadership conference is definitely up there. The event hosted 200 attendees in person and 500 online, all able to contribute and engage and help the Trust shape their plans for the future. It was a huge amount of fun and allowed me to work with brilliant teams and companies to deliver. The cake was a highlight as well!
Favourite event you’ve worked on:
My favourite event was always the English Heritage's Festival of History in the early 2000's. The event featured historical renactors from all time periods and involved everything from jousts to aerial dog fights! It was an amazing event and I always loved supporting the Event Team by managing the Customer Service points on the day. The lost property box was always a sight to behold but sadly I was never allowed to take a sword home...
Claire got offered her first job at 14 after being caught organising a queue of people by the manager of her local railway centre and it's pretty much set the tone of her career! After a failed attempt at university, she obtained her degree in Leadership & Management at the Open University and built her experience of growing and improving business processes in different leadership roles at English Heritage. From there, she moved onto running a parish council (which built her legislative and compliance muscles) and then joined the National Trust to lead their head offices administrative teams. Claire is really passionate about supporting the people she works with to operate more efficiently and joined us in 2024 to bring the excellence inside!
