LIFT is recruiting! As the events grow we need more and more talented individuals to join our
team. For Lift11, which will happen February 2-4 2011 in Geneva, we are looking for a motivated and reliable intern, starting ideally in August 2010.

This opportunity offers great insights and valuable work experience in all aspects of the event management of one of the most innovative international conferences.

For more details please download the job description. Contact us if you are interested, and please forward this opening to your friends!

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS POSITION HAS NOW BEEN FILLED :) MANY THANKS!

Yves Cretegny is joining Lift as CEO starting on February 1st. This is major news as Yves brings the experience and qualifications required to take us to the next level.

Since late 2007 and our first Asian conference, it became clear that Lift was turning into more than the side project it was in the beginning. From a conference with 350 participants in 2006, Lift has developed into three large annual events in Europe and Asia, a decentralized events program called Lift@home, an international and very active community of 5500+ members, etc etc.

^{The timeline of Lift conferences and projects, from 2006 to 2009.}

In the process, Lift became a little group as our legal structure adapted to our different projects. Lift developed into Lift Association, Lift Conférence, Lift Asia and the newly launched Lift lab. We hired several people in Korea, built a team with the Fing in France, took some office space, hired a couple of interns, a part time webmaster and even bought a plant for our office ;)

As the team and structure grew, so did the accompanying challenges in terms of organization, professionalization, finance, cash flow planning, human resources, and legal structure. Each early team member was suddenly confronted with growing responsibilities outside of their original focus, and something had to be done to stabilize and anchor Lift for the future.

^{Yves at Lift09 during the Ozwe QB1 casting. Photo by dgbp.ch}

A couple of months ago, we started discussing with Yves Cretegny - then CFO of Geneva's largest convention center - about our CEO position. It quickly became clear that Yves could bring a very important and complementary perspective to our mission. He has a rare mix of competence and experience: a former manager at Andersen Business Consulting (where I was also working as a consultant), Yves has helped all kinds of organizations grow, organize, focus, and adapt to new challenges and economic conditions. In 2000, he became the CFO and head of innovation at Palexpo, where he worked on the organization of several conventions, among them the 750'000 visitors strong Geneva Motor Show. Since 2008, Yves has been attending Lift. He knows where we are heading, and recognizes the potential our project has. Yves is also the friend of several friends, an important element in a human-centric structure like Lift. We met, discussed, tried to put ourselves in situation to see if things would work out. And on February 1st, Yves will become our new CEO :)

His mission will be to take Lift to the next level, growing our community while retaining our values and original purpose of inspiring and connecting pioneers to turn innovation into opportunities. He will oversee the transition from a team organizing a conference in Geneva to a team supporting several local organizers, working with a community of thinkers and doers from around the world. Yves will work to make Lift a stable and sustainable project, with regular funding streams and a strong community of partners. He will develop value-adding partnerships that respect our original belief that it is essential to separate the editorial from the marketing messages. Last but not least, Yves will also work with us at Lift lab - the company that originally launched Lift conference as a a spin off - and invest his consulting experience to further develop the offers and client base.

With Yves stepping up into his new role, Sylvie Reinhard will continue her work as COO to oversee our operations in Europe and Asia with the help of Sarah Suter. Nicolas Nova will focus on the editorial management of the conference, working on identifying the people and trends that really matter. On my side, I will now focus on the areas that interest me most: the format and strategy of the events, the development and animation of our community, public and partner relations. With less operational responsibilities, I hope to have more time to implement a larger part of my ideas and visions for Lift.

This is a very big step for us. We are very excited by the prospect of welcoming someone like Yves, to transition to a more professional and sustainable structure. The fact that someone with his experience and background left his job to join us is a very positive sign: the proof we are doing something positive, challenging and with a lot of potential. Another step in our short history, another occasion to thank all those of you who have helped make this project come true with your support, presence, advice, questions, comments, suggestions, and more! Thank you:)

We are happy to announce that Sarah Suter joined our team as event management intern.

Sarah studied and worked in finance for several years in South Africa, New York, Kenya, El Salvador and Switzerland... at times for large multinationals, and other times consulting to rural smallholder farmers. She joined the Lift team to pursue her passion for connecting people, communicating, and discovering new people, places, and things.

Welcome to the team Sarah :)

Would you like to be part of our passionate team in making Lift09 a unique experience? We are looking for outgoing, friendly, 100% reliable, hard working, English-speaking people supporting us as volunteers.
Read more about the volunteer positions available and how to apply here . We are looking forward to hear from you :)

We are happy to announce that two new women joined our team:

Solveig Sautier, a freelance Event- and Project manager, will support us as Partner Relations manager. Before joining the Lift Team Solveig worked as coordinator for events such as the Pacte Multimedia produced by the Télévision Suisse Romande or the Festival Nord-Sud.

Eléonore de Lusignan, a recent graduate from the Rhode Island School of Design, will support our Team as Event management Intern, helping us to make Lift a great experience for you!

Welcome to the Team Solveig and Eléonore :)

We are proud to announce that Bruno Bonnell is joining our advisory board. Bruno is a legendary French entrepreneur who created Infogrammes and became CEO of Atari before starting a new venture around the world of robots called Robopolis. He is also one of the funniest person on this planet (ask him to tell you the story of his visit to Neverland ;) and is joining Lift to provide us with ideas and contacts to further develop the conference.
Take also the chance to see Bruno's great speech From Robota to Homo Robotus he held at Lift Asia 08

^{Photo by Robert Scoble}

We are adding some job offers as we need to extend the LIFT team to mirror the growth of the event. Currently two part time openings are available and we have a few more coming your way. We are looking for a partners care-taker (the right title didn't exist in the recruiting vocabulary so we made that up and hope you like it ;) and for an editor/information architect.

We are looking for help to translate some documents we have to English and German. If you:
• are a French/English translator
or/and
• are a French or English to German translator
• have a few hours (2-3) available a week
• can translate some press releases and a few emails
• would welcome a free ticket for LIFT08

Then email us at info@liftconference.com.

Our prestigious advisory board is welcoming four more members for the 2008 editions of the conference. The new faces are:

Pierre Chappaz
Founder and CEO of Kelkoo (1999-2004), the leading european shopping engine, Pierre is the former president of Yahoo Europe (2004). Currently Chairman of Wikio (Personalized info page) and investor in Netvibes (Ajax start page), he is also Chairman of the board of Photoways, inc. a pioneer and leader in the European online photograph printing market.

Daniel Kaplan
Daniel Kaplan is the founder and CEO of the Next-Generation Internet Foundation (FING), a collective and open nexus of ideas and projects on tomorrow's Internet's uses, applications and services. He is also chairman of the European Institute for e-Learning (EifEL). As a member of the European Commission's e-Europe's Experts Chamber, as well as of the French Prime Minister's Strategic Advisory Board on Information Technologies (CSTI), Daniel Kaplan is deeply involved in the Internet's development and evolution. Mr. Kaplan has written or directed 15 books and public reports on the internet, mobility, e-commerce, e-education and electronic media.

Jaewoong Lee
Jaewoong is the founder and CEO of Daum Communication, one of Asia's largest Internet platform with over 40 million users. He is one of the most renowned Asian entrepreneurs, having created one of South Korea’s largest Internet companies. Jaewoong owns Lycos Inc in the US, and is our partner in the LIFT Asia venture.

Guido Van Nispen
Guido is a dutch entrepreneur, investor, investment manager and consultant. He is a board member of Cross Media Week, Europe’s largest creative conference in Amsterdam.

These guys are joining William Cockayne, Bernard Rappaz, Julian Bleecker, Xavier Comtesse, Beth Krasna, Bruno Giussani and Jeffrey Huang to help us build a great event. Welcome :)

If you read the previous post carefully, you probably noticed that our friend John Staehli is not in this year's casting as he decided to focus on personal projects and take some time off the stress, fun and discoveries of LIFT. We wish him all the best and John should of course be hanging around the LIFT corridors in 2008, or around the fondue at the bains des paquis.

John has had more time to blog lately, and you should check his writings on his website: blog.alceste.ch (I will let him explain the "why Alceste" part ;).

John, merci d'avoir été l'un des trois premiers à croire en LIFT, et merci pour tous ces précieux coups de main et conseils tout au long de l'aventure. The door is always open :)