Go-Getters
-- Tradeshow Week, 6/9/2008
Executive Vice President, Conventions and Business Operations
Natl. Assn. of Broadcasters
Brown's a mover, shaker and grower of tradeshows, with more than 20 years of experience in the tradeshow industry, most of it in the association sector, focusing on producing large-scale events. Since joining NAB in 1999, he's played the lead role in planning and executing NAB's two major annual conventions, NAB in Las Vegas and the NAB Radio Show. During his tenure, the main NAB show's grown from 80,000 attendees and 1,200 exhibitors to more than 100,000 attendees and 1,600 exhibitors, spanning 900,000 net sq. ft. of exhibit space. Brown heads NAB's conventions and business operations division, which includes business development, event operations and marketing, meetings support and membership. He's also a high-level player in tradeshow industry associations: Brown's a past chairman of IAEE and current member of the CEIR board of directors.
General Manager
McCormick Place
Causton's almost five years as the top man at one of the country's largest and busiest tradeshow venues has been event-filled, to say the least. There's the gleaming, new $882 million McCormick Place West that had its official opening last August and already has 80-plus shows booked for itself through 2018, two-thirds of them new business or shows that haven't been in Chicago in the past five years. Then there's the new food service deal he signed with a local restaurant consortium that's set to not only be more profitable for the center, but also provide more options to clients (although probably not end the era of the $3 bottle of water). Finally, of course, there's been the ongoing, slowly developing move to declare peace between warring labor unions on one side and exasperated show managers and exhibitors on the other that seems – one new contract with a union local at a time – to be taking place.
President and CEO
San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau
Before landing the top job at the San Francisco CVB in July 2006, D'Alessandro already had a reputation for generating tourism revenue. During 10 years as president and CEO of the Portland (Ore.) Visitors Assn., he saw tourism-oriented revenue increase from $1.2 billion to more than $3 billion. He took that winning strategy with him to San Francisco, optimistically selling the city's attributes, while maintaining the high bar set by his predecessor, John A. Marks, who retired in 2005 after 19 years on the job. In 2005, San Francisco's average hotel occupancy rate was 76 percent with about $6 billion in visitor spending. In 2007, that hotel occupancy rate was 78 percent, but the city generated more than $7 billion in visitor spending.
Vice President, Exhibitions
AMT – The Assn. for Manufacturing Technology
Eelman's the rare show manager who began his career as an exhibitor, and then moved further up the food chain. In his current gig as the AMT executive in charge of exhibitions, its biennial Intl. Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago reached the No. 1 ranking on the TSW 200 for the first time in 2000. With a showfloor of more than 1.1 million sq. ft. year in and year out, IMTS is perennially ranked in the top 10. Eelman's been involved in manufacturing exhibitions for more than 20 years, the last 12 with AMT. He's responsible for AMT events all over the world, personally coordinating shows and meetings in China, Japan, Brazil, Mexico and Europe. He's actively involved in such tradeshow groups as IAEE, CEIR, TSEA and Assn.net. He also is a member of The Chicago Advisory Council and The Chicago Labor-Management Council, groups that have worked to build bridges between management and labor at the city's McCormick Place.
President
Reed Exhibitions Latin America
Marco Giberti didn't exactly enter Reed Exhibitions through the back door, but almost. A true entrepreneur, he'd started his share of companies, including a publishing group, before Reed Elsevier, Reed Exhibitions' parent company, bought a controlling position in Giberti's business, Mind Trainer, in 2005. His company also had specialized in organizing regional tradeshows and events, and had a long-term relationship with E.J. Krause & Associates, a one-time partner of Reed's, when Reed entered the scene and bought out Krause's side of the business. Giberti's responsibilities with Reed have grown exponentially in the roughly three years he's been with the company. At one time, he managed a portfolio of 15 annual events in Latin America (primarily Brazil, Mexico and Argentina), but with Reed purchasing a majority interest in Brazil-based tradeshow organizer Alcantara Machado last year, Giberti now is responsible for more than 50 annual events throughout Latin America.
President and CEO
Questex Media
Gumas' 25-year-plus tradeshow industry pedigree includes senior executive posts with stalwarts like Advanstar Communications, IDG World Expo and Reed Exhibitions. In May 2005, Gumas decided to become his own boss by forming Questex, an integrated media company that currently has more than 50 magazines, Web sites and interactive media products, as well as 25 face-to-face events in North America, Europe, South America and Asia. One of his coups was the formation and management of the world's third largest air show, Asian Aerospace, where his company helped construct, and now manages, the 250,000 sq. ft. Changi Intl. Exhibition Center in Singapore as part of an industry-government joint venture. Much of his success negotiating deals may have come from a different “trade”: Gumas began his career as an international trade specialist at the U.S. Dept. of Commerce where he was part of a team that produced the first U.S. national trade exhibitions in China.
President and CEO
Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau
Jones wears his heart on his sleeve. At a lunch last year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Dallas' bureau and convention center, he implored the crowd of a few hundred to please help their city get an anchor hotel before Dallas fell too far behind the competition. “We cannot reach our potential as a destination without that hotel,” he told them. Jones also told the lunch attendees that 80 groups had said they wouldn't come to the city, not only because of the missing hotel, but also because it didn't have enough meeting space. The strategy seems to have worked. Most of the political hoops have been jumped through, and Jones is inching ever closer to shovels in the ground for a hotel. And for fun? He competes in Ironman triathlon competitions around the world.
CEO
Info Salons Group
Kelleway's had a busy 18 years since she started Info Salons in 1990. In a seemingly short amount of time, she's turned her small, Australian database and registration firm into an international player. After starting out by managing registration for 10 events in Sydney, Australia, Kelleway's company now is involved in more than 500 events annually, providing services to organizers in emerging markets from offices in Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Clients include Reed Exhibitions, dmg world media, Deutsche Messe, IIR Middle East, Diversified Exhibitions and CMP Asia. When Kelleway isn't busy running her own company, she's a global player who's on the scene at industry group meetings all over the world. She's an IAEE board member, helped launch the China Council for the Promotion of Intl. Trade's CEFCO global matchmaking event for the exhibition and event industries, speaks frequently at industry events and is a founding member, board member and former vice president of the Exhibition & Events Assn. of Australia.
Senior Vice President
Reed Exhibitions
McAvoy, a senior executive at Reed Exhibitions since the tradeshow company lured him away from GES Exposition Services in 1999, has become something of an industry elder statesman in recent years. He's one of a few on the show management side that spoke out against exclusive contracts at the San Diego Convention Center – even when his company didn't have a stake in the controversy. “Our objective is to ensure the practice trying to be instituted in San Diego isn't spread to other centers,” he told TSW at the time. McAvoy also has been outspoken about the desperate need for an expansion at the Jacob K. Javits CC of New York – where Reed does have a couple of horses in the race: chief among them, BookExpo America, No. 94 on the 2008 TSW 200, and Intl. Vision Expo East, No. 100 – a plan that was trashed recently after years of off-and-on debate.
Vice President, Convention Sales
Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority
It's hard not to be affected by Meyer's infectious excitement about Las Vegas. Bringing visitors and groups to the destination is his self-proclaimed focus in life. It's his responsibility – one he's been successful with – to recruit enough tradeshows, meetings and conventions to fill the city's 9.7 million sq. ft. of meeting and convention space. Less than a year ago, Meyer helped develop a long-term leasing strategy at the Las Vegas CC, a program that's so far resulted in booking several major shows up to 12 years in advance. A 20-year industry veteran and 30-year resident of Las Vegas, Meyer joined the LVCVA in 2000 after a handful of sales positions at Strip properties, including the Flamingo, Tropicana and Venetian Sands.
Vice President, Tradeshow Operations
World Market Center
Monteferrante's worked fast. Two years ago, she took over as director of what was then the 1-year-old World Market Center's semiannual Las Vegas Market – Summer and Winter tradeshows. Monteferrante's worked to position the home furnishings marketplace among the most significant in the industry sector. During her time with World Market Center, not only has Monteferrante assured the show was safely in the ranks of the TSW 200, but also she's watched the WMC campus balloon into two buildings with 3 million sq. ft. of permanent showroom space. Another building – with an additional 2.1 million sq. ft. – opens next month. A 20-year tradeshow and hospitality industry veteran, Monteferrante has proven herself to be a shrewd market strategist, planning and launching events at WMC to coincide with other industry-related conventions in Las Vegas.
President
Hanley Wood Exhibitions
Poss has been head of the building show-heavy Hanley Wood Exhibitions since its inception in 2000. Even as the construction and real estate sectors have struggled, Hanley Wood's shows have demonstrated something close to stability, staying on a far more even keel than the industry it serves. Poss was previously group president of the Dallas division of Miller Freeman. In 1983, he formed association exhibition management firm Precision Planning & Sales, which Miller Freeman acquired in 1993. He began his career in 1977 with the Greater New Orleans Tourist and Convention Commission. He's been on the boards of IAEE, as well as chairman of SISO, IAEE Services, IAEE Foundation and CEIR. He also was the 1999 recipient of IAEE's highest service award, the William Hunt Eisenman Career Achievement Award.
President and CEO
GES Exposition Services
Rabbitt hasn't been at the top of the GES heap all that long – he joined the company in 2002, moved quickly up the ranks and was appointed to his current position Jan. 1, 2006 – but since taking the helm, Rabbitt's moved the company in some interesting directions. He's pushed GES beyond its core business model by buying Ethnometrics, a consulting company that analyzes attendee behavior and interaction with exhibits and booth staff in order to increase exhibitors' sales effectiveness. That's only one of the many strategic acquisitions the company has announced in the past year. GES also extended its influence in Canada with the purchase, through its Canadian affiliate, of Quebec City-based Poitras Exposition Services. With those and other buys under the GES banner, one has to wonder: What does Rabbitt have planned next for the Las Vegas-based company?
President and CEO
Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau
It was a bit of a surprise when Sain was picked to fill Orlando CVB founder Bill Peeper's shoes in early 2007. Despite the fact his father, Frank Sain, was a legend in the convention and visitors bureau world, having run bureaus in both Las Vegas and Chicago, Gary Sain had never worked at a CVB before taking the Orlando job (even though he had a solid background in hospitality and marketing). A year later, there was no doubt he was the right guy for the top spot. Orlando kept its standing as the No. 2 city with TSW 200 shows, even edging a little further ahead of No. 3 Chicago in the 2008 standings. Sain's also led the charge to roll out a new marketing campaign this year for meeting planners with the tagline, “Orlando, Where Creative Minds Meet.” He also set up roadshows – the Meeting Planners' Creative Workshops – this month in Washington, D.C., Chicago and New York City to show the new campaign to prospective clients.
Managing Director Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (Management)
President UFI, The Global Assn. of the Exhibition Industry
It's a long way from Greenville, S.C., to Hong Kong. On his way from the former to the latter, Wallace has become one of the best-known facility managers in the world. He heads the massive HKCEC, which, since opening in 1988, has hosted some of the world's largest exhibitions and events. Wallace also has withstood the appearance of stiff competition practically next door in the form of AsiaWorld-Expo near the Hong Kong Intl. Airport. He's done it by drawing additional future shows with the promise of an expansion currently underway – in crowded central Hong Kong, no less. Oh, and one more thing: He's president of UFI, the most significant non-U.S.-oriented exhibition industry organization in the world. Wallace also is past chairman of the World Council for Venue Management and the Asia Pacific Exhibition and Convention Council, past president of the Intl. Assn. of Auditorium Managers and a recipient of IAAM's highest honor, the Charles A. McElravy Award for extraordinary contributions to IAAM and public assembly facility management.
