ESA works in partnership with Catherine Hawkins (Think!Sponsorship) and Sandra Greer to deliver the ESA Introduction to Sponsorship. The course is presented by Sandra and Catherine, who also provides our ESA Sponsorship Sales Certificate. The collaboration combines ESA’s mission to inspire more successful sponsorships, drive confidence in decision making and grow a diverse community through world-leading education, with Catherine and Sandra’s ongoing commitment to delivering affordable, effective and pragmatic intelligence and training to the marketplace.
Catherine HawkinsThink!Sponsorship
Think!Sponsorship was founded and is wholly owned by Catherine Hawkins who is a commercial specialist with over 25 years of experience in the sales , fundraising and sponsorship sector. She has worked with a broad range of clients across the culture, entertainment, environmental, local government, sports & member sectors on start-up ideas through to the execution and sale of large-scale opportunities (£5,000 – £5,000,000). Alongside this consulting work, Think!Sponsorship is known for their flagship conference (over 8,000 delegates have attended 29 editions to date), their networking events – Talk!Sponsorship, and their digital, live and in-house training series, the Sell!YourSponsorship Workshops.
Catherine is Chair of the National Parks Partnership (NPP) board an entity specifically created to represent the commercial interests of all 15 National Parks in the UK for the first time in their history. In this capacity she has helped to create a sustainable commercial strategy, identified prospects and generated introductions, recruited talent and helped NPP to evolve their commercial structure. Current partners include Santander, BMW & Estee Lauder.
Catherine is co-founder of the Women in Sponsorship networking group (a group set up and designed to support the professional development of women working within the sector). She is also a Trustee of the Essex Wildlife Trust and mentors young fundraising professionals. In March 2023 Catherine was awarded an inaugural ESA Fellowship in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the sponsorship sector.
Sandra GreerGreer Consulting
Sandra Greer has worked in the sponsorship, events and experiential industry for over 35 years with a focus on research, insight and strategy. Asking and answering the key questions of why, how, who and what! As well as the ultimate question of “did it work?”
Starting in the sports participation and equipment sector, she moved into sponsorship early on in her career to head a number of insight teams in specialist research and sponsorship agencies. This agency background has afforded her the opportunity to work with rights holders and brands through the full sponsorship process using data and insights to help maximise return for sponsorship selection, delivery and evaluation. Sandra has a passion for data to help guide the decision-making process, strategies and planning – all with a focus of meeting business objectives. Her specialism is working with multiple sets of data to track and measure the value and return for both brand and rights holder.
Sandra has worked with some of the biggest names and events across the sports and entertainment industry in Europe, Middle East and globally as well as on more regional/national campaigns for smaller organisations, not for profit and niche brands.
Sandra now works as an independent consultant working on a cross section of projects and training programmes. She is a full member of the Market Research Society, holds the MRS diploma and is a member of the European Sponsorship Association. She is also a Board Member of her Golf Club in charge of governance across EDI, Environment & Sustainability and Marketing/Communications
