Ringleaders

Chris Brown

Executive vice president, conventions and business operations, Natl. Assn. of Broadcasters

Chris Brown responds to his market. Since he joined NAB in 1999, its exhibitions have evolved and grown along with the broadcasting industry. Today, the shows are as much about mobile and digital media as they are about supplying products to old school TV stations.

NAB2005 was No. 13 on the most recent TSW 200 with 822,000 net sq. ft. of exhibit space and close to 1,400 exhibiting companies. What's more, Brown has increased attendance at what's billed as the world's largest electronic media show, to more than 70,000 (including exhibitors) from 141 countries. A changing industry and U.S. government mandates regarding high-definition TV have helped.

Brown's responsibilities also include strategic planning, operations, sales, marketing and attendee services for the NAB Radio Show and NAB Post+ (NY). With a recent promotion from senior vice president to executive vice president, he now also oversees the organization's advertising and services, and international and associate divisions.

Prior to joining NAB, the immediate past chairman of IAEM spent 3 1/2 years running conventions for the Personal Communications Industry Assn., which represents wireless communications service providers. He helped build PCIA's annual convention, the Personal Communications Showcase, into the largest show serving the wireless industry and one of the fastest-growing events in the country.

In fact, the bulk of Brown's career has been devoted to managing mega-shows. He spent 10 years with the Food Marketing Institute, where as director of exhibits he managed sales and exhibitor services for one of the largest events in the United States.

Mike Cooke

CEO, dmg world media

Cooke didn't know a single thing about either publishing or trade-shows before he launched Trinity Publishing with a rugby buddy. However, by the time the two partners sold their company a decade later to British media giant Daily Mail and General Trust, they had acquired three magazines and seven tradeshows.

Somewhere along the line, Cooke must have gotten the hang of it, because he stuck with the organization and now heads up its San Francisco-based dmg world media with 300 tradeshows, 65 magazines, more than 800 employees and 38 offices worldwide.

The last five years represent a period when only the most fiercely competitive seemed to have survived. Still, Cooke has bucked convention and formed partnerships with George Little Management, Western Exhibitors and six other companies. Looking to expand globally, he formed a partnership with Expomedia to export the Big 5, Index and Intl. Pipeline Exposition brands to India and Russia.

By 2005, dmg already had a robust trade and consumer show portfolio, that included strong home and garden shows, but Cooke continued to expand by acquiring ad:tech from JD Events, a trio of St. Petersburg, Fla.-based home and garden shows from Florida State Trade shows and the Bathrooms and Kitchens Expo from Quantum Business Media.

Still not done with the fine-tuning, he jettisoned 15 consumer shows this year, then either launched or bought a few more to replace them.

It's almost as if the work is never done.

Don Freeman Jr.

Chairman and CEO, Freeman

In 1964, Freeman became manager of the Des Moines, Iowa, office of the family-owned Freeman Decorating, a company his father, D.S. "Buck" Freeman, started in 1927. Advancing steadily through Freeman's corporate ranks, he was named president in 1972 and then, upon his father's death in 1977, chairman and CEO of the Freeman Companies.

He's served as an officer or director for several convention industry associations, is a member of the CIC's Hall of Leaders and has received numerous industry awards. The family tradition is carried on by his daughter, Carrie Freeman Parsons, vice president of marketing, and son in-law Joe Popolo, president.

Freeman created the privately held firm's employee stock ownership plan, now in its 25th year, giving every one of the 3,700 full-time employees a slice of the company's pie.

During his career, Freeman has stretched the definition of service contractor beyond just a supplier of showfloor carpeting and mover of freight onto the showfloor. The company has executed a steady series of acquisitions and partnerships that have allowed it to supply everything from electrical services to intercity freight transport.

As one measure of the firm's success, Freeman was general contractor for 102 shows in the latest TSW 200, and was the leading contractor in terms of net square feet. It was a close second on the Canadian 50 list as well, with 13 shows.

Annually, Freeman contracts for 3,800 expositions (85 percent of which are 200 booths or smaller in size) and 7,500 corporate and special events.

Steven Hacker

President, Intl. Assn. for Exhibition Management

When the Natl. Assn. of Exposition Managers hired Hacker in the early 1990s, one of his first decisions was to change the "Natl." in the organization's name to "Intl." Since then, he's continued to broaden the group's reach.

Under Hacker's leadership, inclusion became the watchword as IAEM granted membership to suppliers, launched overseas chapters (including the latest in the Persian Gulf area), and opened overseas offices in Europe (Brussels, Belgium), the Asia Pacific region (Singapore) and China. It also now offers its Certified in Exhibition Management program in Mexico, China and other foreign countries. Hacker has built membership from less than 2,600 to more than 3,500, and restructured IAEM's membership categories.

During his tenure at the dominant industry organization, Hacker has advocated on behalf of the business and helped members with both challenges and potential challenges, including the post-Sept. 11 fallout, SARS and, most recently, the avian flu scare.

An association manager since 1970, Hacker has served many boards of directors in various capacities — as staff member, executive, consultant and adviser. He earned the Certified Assn. Executive designation in 1976, and has been recognized as an ASAE fellow — one of only 78 in the nation.

Today, IAEM is at the center of a network of national and international exhibition industry organizations. Sixteen exhibition associations have aligned themselves as working partners with IAEM through a series of reciprocity agreements, increasing attendance at IAEM major meetings and conferences as a result.

David Korse

President, IDG World Expo

Korse expects people to keep it real, especially when it comes to reporting the results of their tradeshows. He chaired the Exhibition Industry Audit Best Practices and Standards task force that came up with guidelines then transformed itself into the Exhibition and Event Industry Council, which he also chairs. The council monitors industry audits and issues the equivalent of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to those third parties that conduct audits.

In case you think he's a guy who lives in a glass house and throws stones, think again: All of IDG's shows are audited. So if Korse says a show, like the 2005 edition of Macworld Conference & Expo/San Francisco, grew by 11 percent, believe it.

When he isn't chairing one of a number of industry boards, including CEIR and the American Business Media's Events Council, Korse is juggling all the information technology shows in IDG's portfolio. The IT events sector has been in a constant state of flux, as organizers scramble to keep up with the warp-speed changes in their marketplace, but Korse has successfully steered his company through these treacherous waters and managed some of the IT industry's most respected shows, such as LinuxWorld and Macworld.

IDG isn't Korse's first foray into the tradeshow business either. He has 20 years of experience that include founding and running Imark Communications with E.M. Warburg Pincus & Co., heading up IIR Exhibitions and playing numerous roles at Reed Exhibitions dating back to 1984.

Robert Krakoff

President and CEO, VNU Business Media

Watch out world: Krakoff has reclaimed his familiar spot at the top of the tradeshow food chain. The industry titan resurfaced in August, when he was appointed president and CEO of VNU Business Media USA. You didn't actually believe he would vanish into thin air after departing Advanstar two years ago, now did you?

Krakoff wasn't twiddling his thumbs over those two years either. He founded Blantyre Partners, a Boston-based strategic management and investment firm that works in association with investment giant Blackstone Group. He also had a role in Valcon Acquisition's $11 billion purchase of VNU earlier this year.

Although Krakoff will run VNU Business full time from New York, in his "spare time," he said, he will retain his current post at Blantyre.

And in case you're new to the industry, or have forgotten, before Krakoff spent about nine years as chairman and CEO of Advanstar (retiring with the title of executive chairman), he had a 23-year run at Reed Elsevier, winding up his career there as vice chairman.

Feeling inferior by comparison? Sorry, here come some of Krakoff's accolades. He's a past chairman and a past director of the Assn. of American Business Media, and a recipient of ABM's McAllister Top Management Fellowship award. He's also a former member of the board of governors of the Harvard Business School Assn. of Boston.

His storied career started with a bachelor's degree from Penn State and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Joe Loggia

President and CEO, Advanstar Communications

Loggia had already filled the top spot as president and CEO of the mega-apparel show company MAGIC Intl., so it might not have seemed like much of a stretch to transition into president and COO of MAGIC's owner, Advanstar Communications.

Then, of course, Loggia just kept showing up and, before long, he was also CEO of the company. His roller coaster ride to the top of Advanstar seemed to level off by the end of last year.

Advanstar took a big financial hit in 2004, posted a $51.2 million net loss and put a big "for sale" sign on itself for a while. Its investors eventually thought better of that idea and instead did some restructuring. Retooling the portfolio by selling off five shows for $185 million, acquiring five new ones, closing five offices and eliminating 116 positions put the company back in the black by the end of 2005, when it showed a profit of $8.6 million.

Oh yeah, Loggia is also pretty good with numbers, having started out as an accountant with a major firm hired to advise MAGIC years ago.

Now his main focus is on the company's events, magazines and Web sites in the fashion, life sciences and power sports sectors. After the 2005 sale of some of its products, the company still has 48 publications, 32 tradeshows, 23 conferences, seven directories and two electronic products.

With four tradeshows, including two editions of MAGIC Marketplace, both in the TSW 200's top 10, Advanstar seems to have rebounded just fine.

Galen Poss

President, Hanley Wood Exhibitions

Ask Poss himself about the success Hanley Wood has had under his leadership and he's liable to say he was just lucky enough to catch a tiger by its tail. Still, with the company since its inception in early 2000, he's had the responsibility of managing and growing the company's exhibition activities concentrated in the booming construction and automotive industries.

His accomplishments speak for themselves. Four shows — the Intl. Autobody Congress & Exposition (NACE), Intl. Pool & Spa Expo/Backyard Living Expo, Surfaces and World of Concrete — made the most recent TSW 200; the pool and spa show and JLC Live are 2006 TSW Fastest 50 winners.

Despite his workload, Poss has maintained a significant commitment to the industry. Just this summer he completed a term as chairman of SISO and remains on its board. He's also done stints on the IAEM and CEIR boards. (He was chairman of the latter in 1999.) He was the first chairman of IAEM Services and is a former chairman of the IAEM Foundation.

Poss began his career in 1977 as a salesperson with the Greater New Orleans Tourist and Convention Commission, and in 1979 he joined the Automotive Service Assn., heading up its convention department.

In 1983, he formed show management firm Precision Planning & Sales, sold to Miller Freeman in 1993. Poss spent the following six years as a Miller Freeman group president.

In 1999, Poss received IAEM's William Hunt Eisenman Career Achievement Award. He earned his Certified in Exhibition Management designation from IAEM in 1987.

Rossi Ralenkotter

President and CEO, Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority

Rossi Ralenkotter probably takes the lead when it comes to superlatives.

He works for the city with the most exhibit space and hotel rooms in the United States (5.7 million sq. ft. and 133,186, respectively). His bureau has the largest budget — possibly in the world ($228 million). And his staff uses all of it to attract more tradeshows to Las Vegas than any other city in the country (22 percent of TSW 200 shows last year).

Oh yeah, and he might've won the most awards — from the Las Vegas Ad Club, the American Marketing Assn., the Travel and Tourism Research Assn. and, the latest, Employer of the Year from the Employee Service Management Assn.

Not bad for someone who started out as head of research at the LVCVA 33 years ago — something the 55-year resident of Las Vegas likes to remind people of when they bring up his quarter-million-dollar annual salary.

But all this success hasn't gone to Ralenkotter's head. The serious, soft-spoken bureau chief insists on giving the credit for his accomplishments to his staff, and he still spends time volunteering for many associations of which he's a member: DMAI, ASAE, HSMAI and TIA, to name a few.

Nor does Ralenkotter take anything for granted. His pet project is Destination Las Vegas, the authority's five-year plan that includes a $737 million revamp of the Las Vegas Convention Center, all aimed at raising the annual number of visitors to the city to 43 million by 2009.

Gary Shapiro

President and CEO, Consumer Electronics Assn.

What's it feel like to be No. 1? Well, you could ask Shapiro, who heads the association that runs Intl. CES, the largest annual tradeshow in the United States for several consecutive years. The 2006 edition posted big numbers yet again, with close to 1.7 million net sq. ft., more than 2,700 exhibiting companies and 96,000 attendees.

Yet, a lot of people familiar with Shapiro's work wouldn't even know big-time tradeshow manager is an item on his resume. As the face of the consumer electronics industry, he has identified trends and advocated on behalf of the business for decades. He chairs the Home Recording Rights Coalition and the CEIR Foundation, and serves on countless boards both in and out of the tradeshow world. As if that weren't enough, he also created the Academy of Digital Television Pioneers and co-founded the HDTV Model Station.

Speaking of HDTV, next time you turn one on and marvel at how clear the picture is, think of Shapiro, because he's been an active leader in the development of the product. If you've ever downloaded an MP3 or a film, you can thank Shapiro again; he's fought for consumers' rights in this arena. Bought something online? Well, he's been there for you too, lobbying for legislation that allowed commerce on the Internet.

So what do you give a guy who already has so much? How about even bigger numbers for Intl. CES? The show has been on a continual upward trajectory, adding more than 150,000 sq. ft. and 150 exhibiting companies between 2005 and 2006 alone.