Michael Hart

A 'Changeable' Summer
August 24, 2007

Here at Tradeshow Week and at virtually every other news organization I’ve ever worked, summers are slow. Breaking news tends to follow more predictable patterns than you’d think. While we all can remember being jolted by CNN news alerts at 2 in the morning or 5:30 on a Sunday afternoon, take it from somebody who’s been at this a while: Most news happens when people are at work: from 9 to 5 on a weekday and usually not between Thanksgiving and New Year’s or in late summer.

That’s why the last month or two have been so interesting. There’s been news, but of a certain kind: Job changes.

People are quitting, getting fired and getting hired all the time. Regardless of where they leave or where they go, the companies and organizations go on pretty much just as they did before … but we love to read about it, don’t we?

It’s almost even better if the official reasons for these changes are “to pursue other interests” or “to spend more time with his family.” The vaguer the explanation, the freer we allow our imaginations and gossip mills to run.

Some of the personnel changes we’ve reported in the last month or so lend themselves better to this than others.

One that seems easy to figure out you’ll be reading about in the next print edition of TSW: Gene Sanders is now going to run the triennial NPE – Intl. Plastics Showcase. Seems pretty simple: Here’s a guy who’s run Supercomm, had a senior position at NAB and is fully qualified to take over a show that’s ready to move up from a mere No. 12 on the most recent TSW 200.

Another one that makes sense, even if you have to read a little bit deeper between the lines: Jime Essink leaving his dual job as CEO of VNU Exhibitions Europe and president of VNU Exhibitions Asia to run CMP Asia.

Even before VNU became Nielsen, the fact that VNU Exhibitions Europe was actually a joint venture between VNU and Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs must have made it a difficult company to run. Having a major management change at one of your bosses may have been enough to tip the scale on the whole should-I-stay-or-should-I-go question.

Of course, the job at CMP Asia became available when CEO Peter Sutton turned into the “non-executive president,” joining (for reasons we know nothing about, remember) the ranks of executives all over the world that United Business Media CEO Peter Levin might have invited to move along.

Then there’s CEO Tamara Christian’s announcement that, after 15 years with Natl. Trade Productions, she’s leaving at the end of the year “to try something else.” Think there’s a chance this has anything to do with the fairly solid rumor that at least one of NTP’s largest shows is on the market? (And, I swear, if we could get someone to tell us this on the record, we’d tell you too.)

But the biggest puzzle of the summer has got to be Laura McConnell’s departure from Advanstar and MAGIC Marketplace. She’s been there since 1997, and the news came not all that long after a serious-sounding promotion to executive vice president of Advanstar’s fashion portfolio. Of course, that promotion was accompanied by the announcement she had a new boss in Tony Calanca, now executive vice president of all Advanstar’s shows.

Just pointing out what we all read on the printed page.

Now, while I’m busy here speculating on job changers, it would seem awfully peculiar if I neglected completely to mention the fact that my boss, Publisher Adam Schaffer, is moving on too. At least I know where’s he going: to 1105 Media, and more specifically to its Recharger Group.

That does indeed seem to be a company and a group that is making a lot of changes and that you should be reading more about. In fact, given that its Recharger World Expo just closed yesterday, we had been planning a story about it. Then we learned that Adam was possibly a part of the story – so we decided to hold off on it, believing there would be too many reasons for readers to get the wrong impression about why we might be writing it just now.

So, the real story there will have to wait.

Posted by Michael Hart on August 24, 2007 | Comments (0)