Posted by

Barry Siskind

Community Manager

Eric Everard is replacing Manfred Wutzlhofer as President of UFI. Eric Everard is CEO and co-founder of Artexis, Belgium’s largest organizer of exhibitions and trade fairs. He is also the Executive Chairman of easyFairs. In his inaugural speech at UFI’s congress in Singapore he articulated his theme for his term which is “Keeping The Doors Open”.

His five priorities are:

Technologies

He will help the industry search for new technologies that will make visiting a trade fair easier for visitors.

Social media

His approach is to help the industry embrace social media as an opportunity

Membership

His goal is to make UFI more international which will include expanding into North America, Latin America and Africa.

Sustainability

When he talks about sustainability he brings a strong track record of success. Artexis remodeled the Flanders Expo and installed 54,000 square feet of solar panels which will meet 70% of the energy needs of the facility.

Special interest

He wants to reach out to those running large international exhibitions, owners of family businesses, managers of large, medium and small facilities and entrepreneurs to engage in a dialogue that will make the exhibition industry stronger.

Keeping the doors open is the theme of his presidency and we wish him well in his next 12 months as UFI’s president.