The month of March is celebrated as Women’s Month and during that period women in the Cayman community are lauded for their achievements as mothers, entrepreneurs and business and community leaders. The ladies of Kelly Holding Ltd. are a group of such women who many may not have heard of, but are quietly building a reputation in Cayman and around the Caribbean region as the premier event management people.
The company was formed in February 2003 and is owned by Caymanian Rhonda Kelly, CEO, and her business partner Laurie-Ann Holding, Managing Director, who hails from Antigua & Barbuda. Together the two have over 25 years collective experience and expertise in event management, public relations, marketing, sponsorship management and consultancy, branding and corporate communications, Kelly having last worked at Cable & Wireless for 16 years and Holding with the West Indies Cricket Board for six.
Five years and a host of fun, successful events later, the Kelly Holding family boasts a complement of five hard working, resourceful and enthusiastic women. Bev Sinclair joined the company in March 2003 as Communications Manager, Sue Greene came on board in November 2006 as an Account Manager and Brianne Schwartz manages the business that the company does in Antigua.
Ironically the Kelly Holding ladies are making a name for themselves in a sport that is traditionally male-dominated, that of cricket, and more and more they are being called on for their expertise in managing such events.
Perhaps the biggest event to date that Kelly Holding has organized and managed is the Stanford 20/20 Cricket Tournament. In essence Rhonda and Laurie-Ann took Sir Allen Stanford’s vision for the Tournament and ran with it, creating an event that captivated the entire cricket community in the Caribbean and indeed around the world. The partners were the Event Directors for both the 2006 and 2008 Tournaments and executed every aspect of the programme. This included creating the legends programme; overseeing the funding scheme for the countries; communicating with all the countries regularly on all aspects of their participation; organizing the teams’ travel, accommodation and transportation; managing all media communications and press conferences; organizing all of the entertainment for the matches; coordinating the volunteers for the event; creating tickets and managing ticket sales; executing the public relations, advertising and marketing campaigns for the event; maintaining the Stanford2020.com website; ordering all of the team uniforms, equipment, event merchandise and promotional items; negotiating agreements with suppliers and the West Indies Cricket Board; and setting up the professional team programme.
“The Stanford 20/20 was by far the biggest event we ever worked on,” says Rhonda. “It was exciting to be in on this innovative programme and event from the outset. Although we were hired for our years of experience and expertise in organizing and managing cricket events, we also learned so much from our Stanford 20/20 experience. Of course we could not have accomplished what we did without the amazing support of the Stanford 20/20 staff, volunteers, security and other partners who worked on this event with us.”
Kelly Holding also handled the event management for the Digicel Cricket Home Series in 2005 and 2006, and is currently providing Event Management support for the 2008 Digicel Home Series, West Indies vs. Sri Lanka and West Indies vs. Australia. Before that Rhonda managed Cable & Wireless’ sponsorship of West Indies cricket from 2000 to 2003. This work includes branding each venue for the sponsor, ensuring all sponsorship benefits are fulfilled and maximizing the sponsorship as much as possible. The company also performed event and venue management functions for Cricket World Cup 2007 at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua, the Trelawny and Sabina Stadiums in Jamaica and the Kensington Oval in Barbados.
Kelly Holding is not all about bats and balls though. The ladies have also worked on golf and football events for clients. However, the ladies’ most challenging and personally rewarding event is their own, the Cayman Islands Marathon, which is owned and organized by Kelly Holding.
The race takes place on the first Sunday in December each year, and this Sunday, 7 December 2008 will be Kelly Holding’s 5th year managing the race. The marathon is a charity event which wholly benefits the Cayman Islands Cadet Corps and the Cancer Society, and KHL organizes every aspect of the race. This includes securing sponsorships each year; the marketing, advertising and promotion of the event both locally and overseas; disseminating all information regarding the event; the management of the CaymanIslandsMarathon.com website; the registration; coordination of volunteers; and the on site management of the race.
“The Marathon is our baby!” Rhonda enthuses. “It is an incredible amount of work but we love doing it and we are proud of the way the event is growing each year. As an event management company we have yet to make a profit on it for ourselves, or even cover our costs for that matter, but we believe in the event, and we have a vision for this race. Our sponsors, our volunteers and our charities are amazing, and we could not do it without them. It is a wonderful, inspirational experience and we count it a privilege to be able to bring this event to the community.”
Laurie-Ann is quick to point out that although the majority of Kelly Holding’s work has been in the area of sports, the ladies are quite versatile and have done other types of events. These include organizing the National Gallery’s Celebration of Art in 2007; the launch of the Cayman Islands history book He Hath Founded it Upon the Seas; the VIP element of Digicel’s one year anniversary event, a concert featuring Barrington Levy; the 2007 West Indies Cricket Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Antigua; Cayman AIDS Foundation’s World AIDS Day activities; media for the first Cayman Business Outlook conference; and a XEROX Disaster Preparedness and Recovery seminar. The company also manages all of ESSO’s promotions and the branding for all of the events sponsored by Digicel Cayman.
“Although we love event management and that is the majority of what we do, Kelly Holding is truly a one-stop shop for all event and communications needs,” explains Laurie-Ann. “We have extensive public relations and communications skills. We pride ourselves on our creativity and the ability to gain the maximum exposure for all of our projects and events. We can manage as well as sell sponsorships, and provide consultation on choosing the right sponsorship for a client or just help improve a company’s current sponsorship commitments. We are also a full service consulting firm that can provide simple advice on how to improve a client’s events, sponsorship or communications or act as a full partner in improving these areas of a client’s business. All of these services combine to make Kelly Holding a unique company in this region.”
A unique company indeed and lately the ladies of Kelly Holding are being called on more and more to put their distinctive seal of professionalism and creativity on a variety of projects, building a reputation for excellence one event at a time.
For more information about Kelly Holding and its services, call 946.8822, email info@KellyHolding.com or log on to www.KellyHolding.com.
