How to: Host a Roundtable Event

A roundtable discussion can be a useful event to host and help you raise your personal profile as a thought leader and that of your network and colleagues.

There are two key ways to host a roundtable event.

The first is potentially the more straight-forward one. That is to sponsor a roundtable event. Event organisers are always looking for sponsors and many are looking for sponsors for roundtable style events. By coming on a sponsor/host you will often simply be responsible for organising the venue and refreshments (and sometimes not even that) and providing a couple of attendees as well as promoting the event. The event organisers may look after some of these elements as well as organising the attendee list and formal invites.

The second it to run it entirely yourself.

If you are looking to host it yourself you need to remember these key things:

01 Have a clear topic

The topic/theme of the roundtable is key. It must be relevant and enticing enough to attract sufficient interest from the industry/network you are targeting, while still being open enough to invite proper discussion and debate.

You can then clearly target attendees that are interesting in discussing the topic (and potential attendees are clear about why they would want to attend and if they can contribute to the discussion).

02 Have an Agenda to get the discussion started

You need a topic and a brief agenda to get the discussion started. Have a few questions and discussion points, but remember that people will talk about what they want to talk about, and this is where you find some real gems. Just guide the conversation to get the conversations between the group started, but make sure that it stays on topic!

03 Have a Good Moderator

To lead the discussion properly you will need a strong moderator. This may be you, it may be a colleague or it may be someone else in your network. The key things are that this person has to be articulate, confident and knowledgable about the topics being discussed as well as keep the attendees involved. They must be ready to guide the conversation, to lead it and to keep people on topic/on agenda while giving every attendee equal opportunity to participate.

You don’t want your moderator to dominate the conversation. Nor do you want someone who doesn’t have the confidence to work the room and participants. While all attendees will go there with the intention of equal participation there will naturally be people who dominate the conversation and those who hang back, there will be those who are opinionated and those who will have different views or opinions.

It can be a tough job, but a good moderator will be able to manage this.

04 Invite a Select List of Attendees

With roundtable events the key is quality over quantity. Before you organise an event, have an idea about who you want to taerget /invite in the first place.

When it comes to sending out the invites be selective about who you invite or encouraged to attend your roundtables. This will benefit all participants. You will want to build a reputation for putting together good events so that people want to attend and can clearly see the benefit of attending. It can also be an opportunity to help others in your existing network make connections and meet new people with common interests.

05 Do your research

Whether you are the moderator, an attendee or simply there to network do your research on the topic and the attendees. Be ready to contribute and lead/guide the conversation as appropriate.

06 Include some time for networking

As well as the roundtable discussion it can also be useful to have some time to allow people to continue conversations and make personal connections with attendees (over refreshments). This can strengthen the conversation within the group.