Joanne Taylor - Manager
Joanne has enjoyed working at Canary Wharf since 2002, firstly at Cabot Hall and then onto the East Wintergarden.
Joanne's career started at the BBC where her 10 year working service covered contracts, programme complaints and publicity. She then furthered her career in Kent where she opened and worked at a new Conference Centre at Buckmore Park before joining the events team at Canary Wharf.
Dorothy Rugira - Deputy Manager
After Dorothy graduated with a BA honours Degree in Leisure Management, she embarked on a 2 year Management Internship in Florida. Dorothy gained a wide range of skills from reservations, catering and small meetings management.
Her passion for the events industry grew and when she returned back to England, the natural progression was to join the events team in Canary Wharf. She has been at the East Wintergarden since 2004 and still finds every day as challenging and enjoyable as the next.
Chris Handley - Technical Manager
Chris is a relative newcomer to Canary Wharf having started late October 2007. His events career started with a conference production company based in London where he worked for 15 years before becoming a freelance technical production manager. He's now working full time (again) at the East Wintergarden and enjoying every minute of it.
Chris is noted for his cheerful disposition, general enthusiasm and 'can do' attitude. Exceeding customer expectations and encouraging others to think the same way (along with an eye for detail and very much H&S aware) are percolating in to the technical team within the East Wintergarden.
Helena Poland - Events Administrator
Helena joined the Canary Wharf Group in October 2008, at first working for the Arts and Events team and then moving to the East Wintergarden in March 2009. A graduate in English Literature from Queen Mary, University of London, Helena has always been keen to pursue a career in media and communications. Having quickly settled in, Helena is enjoying working closely with the team on a variety of projects and is really looking forward to developing her skills in event management.
Ele Penfold - Technician
Ele has been working for the East Wintergarden as a free-lance technician since 2004, but she joined the team permanently as Venue Technician in April 2008. She is a Lighting Design graduate from Rose Bruford, having previously studied at Leeds University and The BRIT School. Ele has gained a wealth of experience both whilst studying and since graduating and has managed lighting and AV event design, stage management as well as computer aided design work on packages such as WYSIWYG and Auto CAD.
Sarbjeet Basran - Catering Manager, Ampersand
Sarbjeet has worked at The East Wintergarden since March 2009.
Sarbjeet has worked in the hospitality industry for about twenty years, of which she spent a decade with a World Class Chef managing hospitality in the United Kingdom and Internationally in the sports especially boxing, fashion, media and music industry. In that time, she managed Press Conference receptions and dinners for the National Lottery at venues such as Pinewood Studios and Madame Tussauds.Her current experience includes managing the hospitality at events, banquets, conferences, such as The London G20 Summit, Variety International Awards Banquet as well as Corporate Executive Boxes at Wembley, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur Stadiums.