What is Pomona Partners?

Pomona Partners is the only speaker and talent agency in the North of England. It was launched by our founder, Tom Cheesewright, in 2023, when he couldn’t find everything he wanted in one agent, and with the goal of addressing the persistent lack of representation at many of the events at which he spoke.

OUR MISSION

To craft a path to success for our expert talent, positioning them and us as the only choice for event and campaign organisers.

We help brands, producers and marketers to source new, high quality voices that speak to their audience.

Though our reach is global, we are a Northern company, committed to developing and championing emerging and progressive talent.

We’re also developing the next generation of talent through sharing knowledge and experience of growing a personal brand.

Why we’re different

There are lots of different types of intermediary between professional speakers and those who book them. But we think our model is unique.

We believe that we can’t address the issues of representation on conference stages - specifically of women - without bringing new speakers through and helping them to advance their careers.

So we accept speakers at all stages of their career, as long as we think they’re a good fit for us and vice versa.

Every speaker on our books is expected to invest in their own development, and we help with that. Our unique Talent Map assessment tool and library of training content is available to all our speakers.
We want to be the most efficient and transparent speaker agency, both for our speakers and for our customers. Doing that means investing in technology. We’ve been building our own bespoke software platform from day one and every quarter we add new features.
We committed on day one that more than 50% of our roster would always be women. Through our tier system, from Academy, to Professional, to Premier, we aim to advance more women to the top tier of professional speaking.

What you can expect from us

As a Booker

Efficient: We will respond quickly to enquiries, keep contracting simple, and keep you informed.
Transparent: We aim to be as up-front as possible, we don’t oversell, and we’re very straightforward in our negotiations.
Friendly: We’re fun to work with, a smiley bunch who will always try to make booking a speaker an enjoyable and low-stress experience.
Expert: We know our speakers, and we know events. Come to us with a brief and we will try to match it as best we can. And if we can’t, we’ll suggest speakers not on our books who might be a better fit.

As a Speaker

Efficient: We will follow-up enquiries promptly and persistently, wrap a solid contract around your work, and try to get you paid as fast as possible.
Transparent: We share as much information as we can about the work we’re doing on your behalf, and the wider operations of the agency.
Friendly: We’re nice! And we have a great community of speakers who communicate with each other and share their successes.
Expert: We know speaking and events. We will give you as much advice as we can to advance your career.