A corporate event companion who has read the seating plan

Send it with the booking. She reads it on the way and arrives prepared.

• The venue, the start time and the dress code, black tie or lounge suit.
• Who sits at your table, and what they do, a sentence each.
• How you will introduce her: a friend, a guest, or her first name alone.
• Subjects to steer around, whether a merger, a rival or a bad quarter.
• When the formal part ends, and what you would like afterwards.

Most corporate evenings here happen in a small set of places: the private dining rooms of the restaurants around Canada Square and Wood Wharf, the function suites of the hotels on West India Quay and at Westferry Circus, and the halls at Royal Docks and ExCeL, where the largest awards nights are staged. Further north, Stratford adds the hotels beside the Olympic Park. At ExCeL the evening often starts in one of the hotels on Royal Victoria Dock and crosses to the halls on foot. She has crossed most of these lobbies before and knows where the cloakroom is.

She takes no photographs, posts nothing and says nothing afterwards. If someone asks how you know each other, she gives the answer you agreed in the brief and keeps it consistent all evening. She will not hand out cards, pitch for anyone or offer opinions on your firm. When the speeches begin, she listens, and she laughs at the right moments.

Most client dinners on the estate are lounge suit, which for her means a structured dress or a tailored trouser suit in a dark colour. Awards nights at ExCeL are usually black tie, and she dresses to match the invitation rather than to outshine the table. Receptions in the towers fall somewhere between the two. If the invitation says anything unusual, forward the wording and she follows it exactly.

For a hotel function, meeting in the bar and walking into the room together is the most natural arrival. The halls at ExCeL are vast and the entrances many, so name a door and she will be standing at it five minutes early. Restaurants on the estate are simpler still: she waits by the host stand and joins your table when you arrive.

Karolina, 174 cm in clean black tailoring, plays piano, loves opera and walks the estate reading its buildings like a score. Samanta is precise and poised and entirely at ease at a long table. Sonya, hazel-eyed, with a dancer's poise and a calm that fills a room, books between five and ten. Vanessa, with sandy balayage, knows how a long exhibition day drains people and paces the evening to match. Liana speaks softly and listens with real attention. Four of the five are listed under late twenties.

When the formal evening ends, the rest of the booking is yours. Some guests finish with a quiet drink at a hotel bar on the quay; others head home and let her leave early, with no change to the fee. If the dinner is clearly going to run long, ask before the time is up and the rates page shows what the next length costs. For ExCeL, her Zone 3 taxi is quoted in the confirmation.