The agency

& its history.

25 years of Realize.

How the journey began.

Our Managing Partners Gaby von Zychlinski and Harri Paquin have been at home in the event industry for well over 25 years.
Both have already managed event agencies before the partnership.

Realize + Plan it = …

In 1996, Harri took over the expansion of the events department at a tour operator and built up a team for incentives, events and meetings. The original Realize agency emerged from this in 2000. The portfolio quickly expanded to include company celebrations, conferences, trade fairs and congresses.

With Cisco as one of the first major customers, a visionary collaboration began immediately with regular congresses, workshops and trade fairs. In 2005, REALIZE staged the first 2-day Cisco Expo with a lead time of just 3 months. An event with 80 partners, an exhibition, 150 presentations and workshops for 3,000 participants and the legendary Cisco Expo Party. The industry highlight – renamed Cisco Connect in 2014. REALIZE has implemented this for Cisco 6 times in a row. The pharmaceutical sector was developed with Roche, MSD and Sanofi. O2, Mobilcom and Siemens Mobile expanded the technology division.

Almost simultaneously …
Before founding her agency, Gaby worked in the management of a large Italian tour operator specializing in marketing.
In 1997, she founded her agency Plan it and immediately got off to a flying start.

With BMW, the Bavarian State Ministry and ESB as her first major clients, she had projects right from the start that became long-term partnerships for incentives, roadshows, trade fairs and galas. These were joined by various other lifestyle and automotive events. In 2007, the Munich Media Days were added, which Plan it supplied with 65 hostesses from its own hostess pool.

At some point, the 1st time was …

Since these two full-blooded event organizers met in 2007, a flourishing cooperation has developed, so that Plan it moved from Haidhausen to the immediate neighbourhood of REALIZE in Unterhaching to intensify the collaboration. The expertise and experience of both teams came together and were maximized.

And the happy end of the story ...

In 2011, the two agencies merged to form today’s REALIZE GmbH and moved together to the Campus of Ideas in the city centre. Finally, under one roof, the team grew even closer together and the efficiency of the work processes could be further increased.

Some team members at REALIZE and Plan it have been with us from the very beginning and been part of the whole journey through the event’s history.

Further insights into our story
in the course of our jubilee year …