Cover Feature
T R U LY
INTERNATIONAL
BRANDS
EN sits down with Simon Foster, CEO
of Comexposium and chair of the AEO
International Organiser Group, to discuss
industry trends, his exhibitions career
and growing internationally
Words: Nicola Macdonald
Photography: Daniel
Morales/Splento
It’s a sunny May morning when
EN meets with Comexposium
CEO Simon Foster at the St
Pancras Renaissance Hotel,
just ahead of his weekly commute
to Paris, to discuss all things
exhibitions.
Foster has been CEO of French
organiser Comexposium since 2017,
following almost 20 years at UBM
launching business and building
brands and teams around the world,
and was announced as the new
chair of the AEO’s International
Organiser Group in early 2019.
Comexposium is truly a global
organiser, hosting more than 135
B2B and B2B2C events in over
30 countries. The business was
ranked sixth in AMR International’s
2018 top 20 global organiser
rankings by revenue and has grown
significantly since private equity
firm Charterhouse Capital Partners
acquired a 50 per cent stake in
2015, which was then sold to Crédit
Agricole Assurances in 2018.
Like many in the industry,
Foster stumbled into the world
of exhibitions in a roundabout
way. After studying geography at
university, he decided marketing
was the profession for him, and
began working for the British
Security Industry Association, then
and now a sponsor of security event
IFSEC, organised by UBM.
“When I was working on IFSEC a
young man called Paul Thandi (now
CEO of the NEC group) was the
event manager,” recalls Foster. “He
and I became good friends and long
story short he recruited me as the
marketing manager of IFSEC.”
We discuss how commonplace
it is to hear that someone ‘fell’
into the exhibition industry, and
how relatively unheard of it is for
someone to have aspired
June — 21