It’s one thing to ask for creativity and innovation from your employees, it’s another to install examples of exactly that throughout your company headquarters. SEI offices, including its main campus in Oaks, Pa., are home to more than 1,500 pieces of contemporary art, part of The West Collection, which itself includes more than 3,100 works from 700 international emerging artists. “Emerging art is trying to break the bounds of what art is,” SEI Founder and CEO Al West explains in a video about the collection. “We are trying to break the bounds of what investing and wealth management is. Hopefully this art will stimulate our creativity.” That’s the challenge for the event team, explains Senior Event Planner Debbie Lipsky: “to bring what’s different about SEI on the road.”

Pictured: “After Vermeer 2,” artist Devorah Sperber’s re-creation of “Girl with a Pearl Earring” from thousands of spools of colored thread. Seen through a circular viewing device, the spools orient to create the masterpiece.

You might assume that a company that would put a piece of art like this in its office (watch a truly fascinating video about “Mocha Dick” here) probably doesn’t mind employees taking risks. You’d be right. “We are fortunate that we don’t have to ask permission on a lot of things,” says Caryn Taylor Lucia, director. “We can be creative, add surprise elements to events without getting our internal client to approve them. We want them to enjoy the surprise also. At this point we know our clients and internal executives pretty well and they trust us. We love to see them delighted at something we did. As long as we stay in budget, rarely does anyone object!”

Pictured: Artist Tristan Lowe’s “Mocha Dick,” a sculpture of the real-life albino whale that inspired the novel Moby Dick.

The annual Executive Conference has C-level attendees who have been to a ton of meetings in their careers. Adding to that challenge, SEI outgrew the resort where it had held the program for a decade and two years ago introduced the group to a new setting, the Four Seasons Troon North in Scottsdale. While this meant guests would not know what to expect, it was a plus for the event team. “The first year at the Four Seasons we approached it as a new partnership, with new opportunities,” says Debbie Lipsky. “We like to shake it up.” Each year the team takes all the meeting elements—client gifts, evening functions, business sessions—and brainstorms how to re-create them the following year. For example, one of the hotel venues is a lawn. The first year it was the setting for the welcome reception; this year it was the final-night dinner. “We knew that we needed to transform the lawn—no more rounds. This year we did all white furniture and created a cool, relaxed night, with heavy food stations and passed small plates—no cocktail reception first. A DJ played lounge-style music and there was a big round bar in the center. They loved the feel.”

Pictured: The Dining Experience at the Orpheum, another example of shaking things up by holding an evening off site.

“There always needs to be a reason to take groups off site,” says Debbie Lipsky about planning the Dining Experience at the Orpheum for the high-level Executive Conference in Phoenix. Here, the reason was an amazing venue that would wow the guests, along with special surprises throughout the evening. A police escort shaved 10 minutes off the drive to the venue, and all guests arrived at once (Lipsky made sure of this by planning cocktails on the resort’s porte-cochère, which they took over, before everyone boarded the coaches). A short reception in the Orpheum courtyard was the scene of the first surprise, when three “Stomp”-esque performers signaled the opening of the theater doors. As guests entered and made their way to the stage, set for dinner, the theater organ was playing. When they were seated (with salads pre-set), two aerialists unfurled from above and performed. After dessert, a string trio rose up from the orchestra pit to play three pop songs, accompanied by two ballerinas. Then the organ played them out. The client’s reaction? “I don’t know why I ever doubted you. This was a wow.”

Pictured: Aerialists amazed guests during the Dining Experience at the Orpheum.

Since 2010, the Connections Conference, which brings together about 200 private banking clients, has been held at SEI’s headquarters campus in Oaks, Pa. “While our campus is beautiful and a great location, we realized we really needed to change it up each year so the event didn’t become the same predictable conference,” says Caryn Taylor Lucia. “To make it more fun this year—and to celebrate 20 years of this group—we had a 70s party and asked guests to dress up. It was a huge success.” The team also planned a “StrEAT Fair,” where SEI shut down the front drive and filled it with food trucks and entertainment. “There were lots of areas for networking and overall it had an entirely different feel from the dinner before.”

Pictured: The stage setting for the ’70s party (which included some hired dancers), with the disco ball spinning

No, the silly signs in the photo are not the team values! (Though possibly everyone does like pie…) The shot is from a one-day, off-site team meeting—something the SEI event planners do twice year. The actual team values include statements and directives such as these: We are adventurous, creative, open-minded, and we challenge ourselves. We are passionate and determined. Think strategically. Learn from mistakes (both yours and others’). It’s okay not to be comfortable. Assume positive intent.

Pictured: The SEI events team (from left): Heather Esham, Casey Angle, Erin Cavanagh, Terri Ann DiJulio, Kristen Henry, Shira Jones, Stacy Degon, Linsey Poletti, Caryn Taylor Lucia, Diane Chambers, Debbie Lipsky

Plenty of meeting teams have uniforms. SEI goes up a notch here as well. Says Caryn Taylor Lucia: “We try very hard to get out of the ‘golf shirt with logo’ type of uniform for staff. No one looks good in that outfit, especially a bunch of fashionable event planners!”

For evening events, Debbie Lipsky adds, “we usually specify a color for the team to wear.”

Pictured: From left, the meeting team in “uniform” (suggested color, pink): Casey Angle; Linsey Poletti; meeting client Stephen Meyer, head of SEI Investment Management Services; Stacy Degon; Debbie Lipsky; and Kristen Henry

In the SEI headquarters office, you won’t find mahogany and marble. You’ll find recycled materials and “pythons” hanging from the ceiling. (These are electric cables to pop into your computer wherever you feel like sitting.) Because CEO Al West knows that contemporary art can be challenging—indeed, he sees that as one of its primary values—no employee is forced to sit near a work of art that he or she finds offensive or distasteful. On the other hand, West is not in favor of putting challenging works in storage. So instead, works that end up being divisive are put in the “hot hall.” Employees are encouraged to comment on the art, and some of these comments, both positive and negative, are posted verbatim on the wall near the work. An employee may “adopt” a piece that another employee has shunned, in fact.

Pictured: Oversized shoes and pipe created out of licorice by artist Andy Yoder

The SEI meeting team brainstorms at least once a week. “Whoever is the project lead invites everyone to sit around our table to chat about their upcoming event, and we share ideas,” Caryn Taylor Lucia explains. All members of the team keep their eyes on pop culture, Facebook, Pinterest, BizBash, and what fellow members of Financial & Insurance Conference Planners are doing with their events. They also regularly communicate with their partner caterers so they know what’s out there now and—more important—what’s coming next. “We strive to introduce our clients, internal and external, to the next thing before they see it somewhere else. We want to be the leader not the follower when it comes to anything event-related. We were early adopters of the event app, food truck festivals, flash mobs, etc. The minute something feels passé, we are onto the next thing. It feels like a lot of pressure at times but in the end it’s always worth it!”

Pictured: “American Alphabet” by New York artist Heidi Cody. The letters are from logos for products like Eggo Waffles, Lysol, and York Peppermint Patties—a commentary on the pervasiveness of consumerism in our visual culture.