E139: Behind the MC mic - Conversations from South Summit Madrid

real people, real stories, and real challenges that break the status quo. I'm your host, Zhivila, and welcome to Perception and Paradox.

Hello, we're here today. Yes, we're here reporting live here in the outside area.

So, hi, everyone. I think I don't know what's going to be left out of this video, but we're going to try just invite people to see what happens step by step. So hello, everyone. Welcome back to Perception Paradox. We're live at South Summit 2026 here happening in Madrid.

Yes.

And the first one I have with me, Chris. I guess it's

just me and you because Benjamin's on the phone, she's networking.

So that's literally how the MC and moderator live work. Yes. And we thought just to do a quick episode to share what's behind the scenes when you come to the conference as a speaker, master of ceremonies. I don't know Chris, what got you from the first place to such world?

This was a total accident, actually. It was right place, right time. My whole background is in acting and performing and directing in the theater.

Continue, continue.

That was my whole background was in performance. So this is like improv is what it is.

Yes.

I know. Take two.

Acting and performance.

But no, a couple of years ago, I reached out to a conference and I was asking them, hey, I could do some coaching because I do a lot of presentation coaching, public speaking coaching. I said I could do some workshops. I can talk about this. I can coach people. I can work with your startups. And they said, great. The event is full. And I said, OK, well, maybe the next year. And they said, yeah, but actually we're looking for someone to host on the main stage and we think you have a great profile. I was like, what? I never did that before in my life. So again, it was a happy accident. I had the background, but I never had that experience. And then it's just kind of keeps rolling.

How long have you been doing that now?

Hosting, this is, I'm going on, this is year two. So I'm very new to it, but like improv-ing and talking to a camera or talking to people, I've been doing that my whole life.

So yourself as coming from the industry background, like where you grew up, like with stages, with acting, with improvising, being like up sharp on reacting and listening. So what kind of major challenges are kind of in your daily work that you have to always navigate through?

I always tell people, because this is like hosting is the side job. It's more about the public speaking and presenting is the main thing. But I tell everybody, oh, we have a very special guest here today. Put yourself here on the camera. Are we filming?

so when we tell people let's finish and then you all right no no

you stay here uh i forgot what the question was oh you just roll with it i tell everybody i work with take an improv class because honestly that's what we do as hosts sometimes we have a script sometimes you don't but the best is just acting we say acting is reacting life is reacting we're improvving right now so that's what i tell everybody is that's the best training is just be a reactor

The words of wisdom. So if you need any acting online classes or in person, Chris is the guy to go. Now we just pulled in Benjamin. Oh