Freeman is a family-owned company that provides services for live events, trade shows, conventions, corporate events, exhibits — you know, pretty much all sorts of events that bring large groups of people together. Sounds fun. However, it is also exactly the sort of company that might run into some trouble if the world were to basically shut down for an extended time, such as what we saw during the COVID-19 crisis of 2020.
So, exactly what kind of trouble did Freeman run into?
“It was bad. Really bad,” says Carrie Freeman Parsons, third-generation chair of Freeman, whose first official board meeting as chair was October 2019, just five months before the global pandemic truly took off. “Those of us who went through it, especially our leadership team, still have some post-traumatic stress as a result of it because it was really incredible.”
How incredible? Well, at the time that the pandemic hit, Freeman was approaching the end of its 2020 fiscal year on June 30 and the company was expecting a record year in revenue. For the 2021 fiscal year, Freeman was down approximately 90% in revenue. That is to say nothing of the human cost. A company of about 6,000 full-time people when COVID hit, Freeman had to adopt a strategy of furloughs and layoffs, shrinking to fewer than 1,000 full-time workers, in order to survive.
Although it was a scary and challenging time, there were several factors working in the company’s favor, including the strength of the board and Freeman’s leadership team, in particular former CEO and current board member Bob Priest-Heck.
“Prior to joining Freeman, Bob had taken a business through bankruptcy. Given that none of our tenured leaders had experienced a situation remotely like the impact of COVID, we were fortunate that Bob knew early on exactly what levers to pull,” says Freeman Parsons.
Private companies are not required to have a committee structure nor independent directors, but the fact that Freeman has both is another reason the business was able to pull itself out of a pandemic-sized hole.
“We had trusted board members who’ve been with us for quite a while who were so thoughtful and helpful — especially Renée Hornbaker, who chairs our finance committee,” says Freeman Parsons. “She helped us be very purposeful in how we were making decisions and the sequence of those decisions. We could not have done it as effectively as we did had our board not been in place. They really helped temper the anxiety that all of us were going through.”
“Our belief was that the business would come back. We believe in the power of live events to advance brands. It’s what organizations need to bring people together,” she says. “We knew that we needed to stay close to our customers so that we were ready when the business came back. And we knew that this was also an opportunity for us to completely reorganize the business which, built over time, contributed to a burdensome structure. But, to achieve this outcome, we were going to need to make investments at a time when we had very little revenue.”
Although the board was deeply committed to working with management through the challenges of COVID, it was not without some conflict. There were family members and board members who were not in full alignment with the approach. Fortunately, Freeman Parsons had a board that ultimately supported a shared vision for the company’s future.
“I’m so grateful that the board said, ‘We agree that this is going to come back. We also agree that you have the plans to reorganize the business. You were already working on it. We need to do this. We need to go forward.’”
Fast-forward to 2024 — because who really wants to spend too much time talking about 2020? — and the business is back to pre-COVID revenue. And, just as important, Freeman has been able to bring most of its people back, with full-time employee numbers approaching the pre-COVID peak.
“Certainly, the bet paid off. There were thousands of big and small ways that contributed to our ability to ramp back up and deliver more effectively for our clients. Although incredibly challenging and oftentimes painful, COVID was our window of opportunity to take an over-90-year-old business and reformulate it to thrive into the future.”
Heaven forbid another experience should take place such as the one that the events industry went through. But what attributes should be nurtured to address challenging times? According to Freeman Parsons, the list includes courageous leadership; long-term focus; a trusted, competent and engaged board; clear governance; and a willingness to address hard issues, especially when there is conflict in the family.