Making things happen in sports & entertainment
Century 21, the trading name of Celebrity Events Limited, was established in 2003 to provide consultancy, public and media relations, sponsorship management and event marketing services to clients in business, sport and entertainment.
The company has operated successfully over the intervening years and includes government departments, major companies, sports governing bodies, professional sports clubs and individuals among its clients.
Century 21 is owned and managed by its directors, Steven Barker (Chairman), Patrick Lennon and Roy Mantle.
Experience and Expertise - Introduction to directors
The combined experience of the company's directors provides an extensive resource of expertise for clients who benefit from the directors' direct involvement in the assignments the company undertakes.
Steven Barker is a lawyer and founder member of his firm, practising for almost 30 years in central London. Over the years, Steven has dealt with and represented many sports personalities, clubs and institutions from a wide variety of sports, and written and presented seminars and papers on sports related legal topics. He lists sport, particularly rugby league, as an interest in his entry in the Legal 500. He has an extensive range of sporting, media and commercial contacts that he brings to the business in additon to his legal expertise and experience as well as his no nonsense approach to problem solving and issue resolution.
Patrick Lennon is a marketing and media relations professional with three decades of experience working in the leisure and sports fields. He has held senior management positions in the airline and travel industries and in professional rugby. He has acted as advisor to sport governing bodies, rights holders and individual clubs. He founded and has managed a successful marketing and public relations consultancy for 25 years. A sports enthusiast, he writes and broadcasts about rugby and has a special, experienced based interest and record in the field of crisis management and communications.
Roy Mantle has more than 25 years experience in sales, marketing, PR, sponsorship, events and sports management both in-house with blue-chip companies and as a consultant. He founded and ran two successful sports marketing agencies in the 1980s before becoming head of PR & sponsorship for Guinness in 1992. He negotiated and helped to plan the activation programme for the Guinness sponsorship of the 1999 Rugby World Cup and managed the Guinness sponsorship of London Irish for nearly a decade. He has worked on projects for the Department of Education since 2002, handled the Guinness sponsorship at Cheltenham Racecourse for more than 15 years and is also currently involved with rugby league and powerboat racing.
James Durbin has more than 15 years experience as a sponsorship professional, including director level roles in rugby, cricket, football and motorsport. He has sold and managed sponsorships on behalf of rights holders to a value in excess of £50 million including brands such as Guinness, HSBC, Coca-Cola, Vodafone, Air France KLM, FedEx and Sun Microsystems. He founded and managed a boutique agency in 2009 that focuses on developing the commercial offering for niche-sport rights holders as well as strategic marketing partnerships for brands. James started his career in Australia where he was involved in Rugby World Cup 2003 and where he also earned his business degree and masters in sport management from the University of Technology, Sydney.