Corporate Meetings: Head to Head

Larry Head, Global Director of Events, Diageo

In 1995, Larry Head joined Heublein, a spirits company and joint venture of Pierre Smirnoff Company, Hartford, Connecticut where he supported the North America marketing and public relation teams before relocating in 1997 to Miami, Florida to take a role in the newly created Diageo P.L.C. The result of a merger between Grand Metropolitan P.L.C. and Guinness P.L.C. and through the subsequent purchase of Heublein, Diageo P.L.C. became the world’s leading premium drinks business with an outstanding collection of beverage alcohol brands across the spirits, wine and beer categories.

While in Miami, Larry was responsible for managing North America marketing services, events and trade related brand activity for the Southeast region of Diageo.

In January 2000, Larry returned to Connecticut to join the Northeast region of Diageo as Manager of Events, Sponsorships and Trade Relations responsible for the activation of brand sponsorships and public relations events.

In May 2003, Larry was appointed Manager of Events, Diageo, North America, Corporate Relations responsible for all priority projects, meetings and events for North America.

In November 2006, he moved onto a global role, based in London, in the Corporate Relations Business Support team, a group of specialist within the business that were assigned to priority projects which required their individual skills and expertise as the Global Corporate Relations Events and Communications Manager.

In June 2007, he was promoted to Global Director of Events and assigned to the Diageo Leadership Performance programme (DLPP) for 24 months. In this role, Larry took over 900 senior leaders of the business through 14 events in 7 countries. Larry was responsible for the implementation and execution in the DLPP, which was the largest internal programme of its kind ever run at Diageo.

In June 2009, Larry was seconded to the Guinness Global Brand team for the Guinness 250th Anniversary programme. The global programme included a series of celebrations called Arthur’s Day music events held in Dublin, Lagos and Kuala Lumpur. This truly global celebration to mark a milestone year for Guinness and the signing of a 9,000 year lease for the St. James’s Gate brewery by the founder Arthur Guinness, began at 17:59 in Dublin with performances from over 60 musical artists in over 30 venues across the city of Dublin. Larry was responsible for directing and hosting hospitality for over 2,000 invited VIP guests including consumer winners, customers and global media.

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