UFI President’s Message: December 2024
Dear members and dear friends: It is my great pleasure and honor to address all of you, our global UFI community - indeed the global exhibition community - as I will be serving as UFI President for the coming year. As a newcomer to this amazing industry - almost 5 years ago - I am so grateful to Michael Duck for recommending me for this role! Thank you to the UFI Board of Directors, Executive Committee and all members for this wonderful opportunity to serve in this position. I want to briefly outline three priorities that I want us to focus on together. First, talent – both the talent already in our business and the diverse talent we need to attract in the future. There has been a lot of research and collaboration across the industry to really understand how to not only attract the future talent of our industry, but also how to convey the incredible depth, diversity and…
UFI President’s Message: November 2024
Dear colleagues and dear friends: My last two columns reported breaking news for UFI employees: Chris Skeith will take over as UFI CEO on January 1, 2025, and Kai Hattendorf will is leaving UFI (or, to be fair, a plane seat) after a decade as CEO. This month, it’s my turn to move on – as I prepare to hand over the presidency to Hugh Jones at the Global Congress in Cologne in a few weeks. I won't be previewing my review of the year here - I'm working on it and will report back to you all on the year at the UFI Congress. Here I would like to connect the three big questions that I hold dear to my heart during my year at the helm of UFI. The first is that our conference in Cologne is shaping up to be one of our biggest conferences ever. While we like to automatically be bigger and stronger in our…
UFI President’s Message: October 2024
Dear colleagues and dear friends: UFI launches new ‘Exhibition Essentials’ education program in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We held the first UFI Americas Conference in Monterrey, Mexico. No. 3RD Asia CEO Summit held in Singapore. Sustainable Events Summit in New York City Powered by UFI – I must admit that even as President of UFI, I sometimes struggle to keep up with the flow of news and updates that the team has shared with me over the past few weeks. This actually made me stop and think about the importance of the UFI message - the monthly membership update you are reading now. We're always focused on projects - events, research, education and more. But it is also important that we communicate well about these projects and share results, experiences and insights. So I would like to express my gratitude today to the UFI MarComs team for their efforts in providing all these timely summaries and updates through all relevant channels!…
UFI President’s Message: May 2024 Edition
Dear colleagues and friends, As I write this, the sun is shining in Dubai. You might be wondering why I am pointing out this obvious fact, but the truth is, it wasn’t that long ago when we were hit with unprecedented rainfall here. The torrential downpours we experienced at the GCC in April came as a huge shock to Kigali as we were hosting the MEA Conference there at the time. Not only was the rain a talking point at the UFI Congress, it also cast an unfortunate shadow on some of the proceedings as some tried to rush back to the GCC. But the impression I had from the Regional Conference was the closeness of our community and the friendly vibe. I think this was largely due to our fantastic hosts (thank you!) and the way the UFI team organised and ran the event (thank you too!). It really was a great time to connect face to face! Add…
UFI President’s Message: June 2024 Edition
Dear colleagues and friends, We will be holding our European conference in Zurich in a few days. The content looks very promising and I am personally looking forward to meeting this year’s group of Next Generation Leaders in person, as I chair the selection committee. Today I would like to highlight the work that my colleagues who work with me on the Executive Committee and the Board of Directors, as well as the UFI team, put into these meetings. We will also meet again in Zurich. Since joining these leadership teams a few years ago, I have become accustomed to well-prepared meetings, with clear agendas, concise and accurate information, and last but not least, with room for reflection and discussion. It is usually not noticeable, but when our members and the community gather at the welcome receptions of these events, from the perspective of the UFI leadership and team, we have invested a day or more - these meetings and…
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