the September 2008 Issue in PDF Format - Trade Show Executive

Continued from page 22
Bob: What are you doing to help
exhibitors deal with escalating costs
associated with exhibitions?
Mike: Several things: we leverage our
buying power for our customer’s benefit.
We advise them on how to participate,
looking at exhibit packages to further
reduce their total cost. By staying close to
customers, we are better able to provide
solutions that do not necessarily involve
increasing their real estate imprint. More
and more, our exhibitors come to us for
assistance with their global marketing
programs – and that’s wonderful. In
essence, their global trade is intertwined
with our exhibitions.
Bob: Do you still manage associationowned
shows?
Mike: Yes, but less than we used to. We
have management contracts but more
often partnerships and joint ventures.
Depending on where you are in the world,
they are very important to entry into a
marketplace and event success.
Bob: How do you identify and
develop future leaders within Reed
Exhibitions?
Mike: We are spending more time
developing our management team and
enhancing their career paths. Our
first requirement for any growth is
to have managers available to handle
it successfully. We have a variety of
programs within certain skill areas, and we
take advantage of Reed Elsevier’s many
management programs. We also send
people to advanced courses at schools
such as Harvard University.
Bob: Who were your mentors along
the way?
Mike: I would say that I enjoyed working
with or for quite a number of fine people
over the years, whether they were at Clapp
& Poliak, Cahners, Reed Exhibitions or
Reed Elsevier. You pick up great skills and
knowledge – and things not to do – from
all of these contributors over the years.
Bob: What advice would you give
a middle-management trade show
executive?
Mike: The trade show industry worldwide
is a multi-billion dollar industry
comprised of talented people but they
often wouldn’t have known about the
business if they hadn’t fallen into it. It’s
fast-growing and exciting with enormous
potential for career growth. We need
more of those kinds of people and we
need them to stay once they join us. It’s
quite a multi-faceted industry today, and
we are hiring people who “don’t look like
us”, i.e. those with different specialist skill
sets. I’ve enjoyed my time in the industry
and highly commend it to those already
here and those considering joining us.
Bob: What keeps you up at night?
Mike: It’s dangerous to make the
statements I’m about to make, as
comments like these have a nasty habit
of coming back to bite one in the
future. That said, as far as I see Reed
Exhibitions and our industry right now,
there isn’t anything out there to upset
our momentum. What potentially could
impact us springs from our own internal
management challenges, i.e. enough of
the right people to manage our growth.
Mind you, I’m very focused on any
possible Achilles’ Heel, knowing that it
could come from within as well as from
outside. One of our strengths is that we
have “stuck to our knitting” and executed
well on what we know best. Right now,
the challenge is being able to maintain our
growth levels and doubling our business
down the road.
Reach Mike Rusbridge at +44 208 910
7901 or mike.rusbridge@reedexpo.co.uk
Worldwide leaders. Paul Zilk, president of Reed Midem; Paul Beh, president of Reed Exhibitions Asia/
South Pacific; and Rusbridge have good reason to smile as the company is enjoying robust global growth.
Bob Dallmeyer is
Past Chairman of
both the International
Association of
Exhibitions and
Events (IAEE)
and the Trade
Show Exhibitors
Association (TSEA),
as well as a former Bob Dallmeyer
Director of the
Center for Exhibition Industry Research
(CEIR). In 2006, he was inducted into the
Convention Industry Council’s “Hall of
Leaders.” Contact Bob at 323-934-8300 or
bdallmeyer@tradeshowexecutive.com
24 September 2008 Trade Show Executive www.TradeShowExecutive.com