Club SISO

David Audrain

President, Messe Frankfurt USA

This former IAEM chair's career has been almost equally divided between the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. Audrain started in the business in 1991 with a 7-year stint at the Texas Restaurant Assn. Positions at Miller Freeman, Hanley Wood and Advanstar Communications led to his job as COO at ConvExx, where he managed SEMA Show for the Specialty Equipment Market Assn. until last year. Today, he over-sees Messe Frankfurt's nine North American exhibitions, while recruiting for its other 100 abroad.

Greg Farrar

President, VNU Expositions

His experience commanding troops as a Marine Corps infantry officer may have come in handy for running a company that produces 65 tradeshows and publishes three magazines covering the defense, health care and retail sectors, just to name a few. His passport's probably littered with stamps, since he's on the road almost constantly. Farrar's been a key player in growing the expo division into a breadwinner for VNU Business Media, with the largest shows in many of the sectors it caters to.

Michael V. Green

Executive vice president, Hanley Wood Exhibitions

If Galen Poss is the most visible figure at Hanley Wood, Green represents all its moving parts. He oversees tradeshows with a total of 2.5 million sq. ft. of exhibit space, including four 2006 TSW 200-ranked events. Given the go-ahead by its new owner, J.P. Morgan, the exhibitions division went on a shopping spree, and Green has been instrumental in every deal so far, acquiring DeckExpo earlier this year and expanding the existing StonExpo in 2007.

Nancy Hasselback

President and CEO, Diversified Business Communications

During Hasselback's tenure, Diversified certainly has worked hard to become, well, diversified. In recent months, she led the company through continued expansion with launches and acquisitions, and the re-branding of its Australian and British divisions to Diversified Exhibitions Australia and Diversified Business Communications U.K., respectively. Not only that, Hasselback — who started out at the company in 1979 as SeaFood Business editor — also let a dozen employees assist with Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts first-hand for a week.

Britton Jones

President and CEO, Business Journals

Jones' Business Journals produces 11 fashion events each year at the Javits center in New York and two in Las Vegas. Although he will tell you he backed into the trade-show business, not quite knowing what he was getting into, Jones has not shrunk from the competition. In New York, he goes head to head with ENK Intl.'s shows down the street at Pier 94, the UnConvention Center; in Las Vegas, he cheerfully takes on MAGIC Marketplace.

Don Pazour

CEO, Access Intelligence

Pazour ended a 22-year stay at Miller Freeman as its last CEO and took over an ailing PBI Media (aka Access Intelligence) in 2000, gently nursing it back to health over the intervening six years. Along with overseeing an existing stable of publications, meetings and Web sites serving a number of industries, he has been busy the last 2 1/2 years integrating the acquired Chemical Week Associates into the mix. Pazour, a longtime SISO member, is also its current chairman.