Olga Balakleets: Preserving and Promoting Performing Arts Diversity and Heritage
After surviving a pandemic that posed a number of difficulties for the events business, it is more important than ever to have creative and adaptable thinking than ever before. CEO Olga Balakleets runs the international event planning firm Ensemble Productions, which has offices in the United Kingdom and worldwide.
Olga claims that the staff at Ensemble Productions is continually trying to come up with fresh, innovative concepts, the likes of which have only recently begun to bloom on the internet. The events industry is booming, so it’s important to be as wide to the audience as possible by including a wide range of performance styles and technologies. Olga insists that everyone on the team stays abreast of any technological advances that might be useful in upcoming projects.
Olga’s career began as a concert pianist before she started Ensemble Productions. As she gained experience and insight via organizing smaller events and lending a hand to other festivals and creative companies, she eventually created and grew her own events firm. Olga previously arranged a two-week event at London’s former cultural center, the Southbank Centre, that featured over 250 performers focusing on traditional and modern classical music. She felt extremely assured in her abilities to proceed along this path after going through what she had. She claims: “Understanding events and many facets of the entertainment industry has been greatly aided by my appearances as a soloist with orchestras and chamber groups around the world.”
Destined to Rule
A strong drive to lead might make it impossible for certain people to work for someone else. One such person is Olga. She worked for a few companies before realizing she needed to establish her own and take charge of its operations. “It’s in your genes and your fate to either become a leader or not,” she says.
Olga has been a musician since she was a child, and she quickly realized that her favorite part of being a musician was working with other musicians and artists, both onstage and behind the scenes. In time, she established her own events company and planned her first cultural celebration. She feels at home in the entertainment industry because of her familiarity with its culture and the challenges it presents.
Ensemble Productions
Ensemble Productions is an events firm that is always up for new challenges. They produce a number of annual international cultural initiatives all around the world. We conceptualize and execute projects and events on behalf of private, corporate, and governmental clients. Our services cover a wide range, and I don’t ever want to put a cap on what we can provide.
A Burden That May Become a Blessing
In all likelihood, Olga’s career in event planning began when she was still a student at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in her native Russia. She was in charge of arranging extracurricular performances for students. It was thrilling for her, and she could tell that others looked up to her as a result. Since then, she hasn’t stopped planning parties; each one is bigger and better than the last. She boasts, “I was lucky to be acknowledged for my work multiple times, receiving highly valuable honors from governments and various organizations in different nations. The Pushkin Medal, Russia’s highest cultural honor, is the best honor I could ever hope to receive. Olga receives much-deserved leadership accolades thanks to her position as the platform’s founder and director.
One Who Adopts the Cooperative Leadership Philosophy
Olga is a CEO that takes a hands-on approach to her work because she values teamwork and the constant interchange of ideas. She thinks up ideas, negotiates with customers and sponsors, controls costs, keeps everyone on the team in the loop, coordinates logistics, and contributes to promotional strategies.
She thinks it pretty much covers everything, and she doesn’t think it’s weird for a CEO to have a hand in everything. She considers each day to be unique since it presents new challenges and opportunities. She believes the team’s progress over the past year and a half has made her claim that “our skills for working remotely make our work and leadership easier” more plausible. You need to be familiar enough with the task at hand and your team to do it smoothly. I’ve never attempted a one-word self-description, although “optimist” comes very close.
Having a Job in a Challenging Field
Men predominate in the entertainment sector because of the inherent difficulty and danger of the job. According to Olga, “It’s quite difficult, and there are occasions when additional difficulties arise simply because you’re a woman. And so she continues, “You will succeed and overcome these hurdles just like women leaders in any other male-dominated professions if this is what you enjoy doing and you believe you are in the correct place.
The Performance has to Go On, No Matter What.
The entertainment business is fraught with difficulties of every stripe. “You get stronger every time you lose, every time you are criticized, every time you have to make serious compromises, and every time you fail in the eyes of some people,” Olga adds. One of my personal creeds is the proverbial “the show must go on” You have to come through for people regardless of how tough things get, so long as you don’t harm anyone in the process.
For Olga, success is measured by how much others admire her. She thinks it happens when one’s work creates values and improves the lives of others. She thinks that financial success is something everyone should aspire for, but it shouldn’t come before the people who make up a person’s life and work.
Always Attempting to Improve
The battle for mental stability is one that all people, but particularly women, must wage. Olga claims that in order to succeed, one must have superb time management and organization skills. “We women have shown it is possible to excel in all three roles, and many of us have done so.” Less sleep and better organization will get you there.
Olga claims that she never felt the need to push herself at work because she always tried to do her best for the people who relied on her. Nonetheless, she thinks that managers should inspire their teams by providing stimulating work, praising employees for their achievements, and rewarding those who go above and beyond. It’s also important to hire people who are passionate about their roles.
Considering Using Entertainment to Raise Awareness
Now that she’s back at work after an unexpected break, Olga is brimming with plans for the company’s future. She hopes to increase the organization’s reach by entering new countries and launching impactful projects that will educate people about the threats facing the world today so that they can respond to them in innovative and effective ways. She says, “I want to create a chain of such life-transforming events that will hopefully change lives for the better,” expressing her belief that “Large-scale global events, when organized and broadcast, can send a strong message.”
Olga wants to provide a good example for her kid by continuing to develop as a person and businesswoman.
