Dear colleagues, dear friends, 

The launch of UFI’s new “Exhibition Essentials” education programme in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Our first-ever UFI Americas Conference in Monterrey, Mexico. The 3rd Asia CEO Summit in Singapore. The Sustainable Events Summit in New York City that UFI supports – I have to admit that, even as the UFI President, I have struggled on occasion to keep up with the stream of news and updates that the team has shared with me in the past weeks.

Which actually made me pause and reflect on the importance of UFI Info – the monthly member update that you are reading right now. We always focus on the projects – on the events, research, education, etc. But it is equally important that we communicate well about them and share the outcomes, learnings, and insights. So I want to explicitly thank the UFI MarComs team today for their efforts in providing all these timely summaries and updates across all the relevant channels!

Sometimes UFI Info even carries “breaking news” – as it does today. Allow me to share that we can report back on the search for UFI’s next CEO. After reviewing, interviewing, and vetting excellent candidates both from outside of and within the organisation, we have selected Chris Skeith to take over from Kai in January 2025.

Chris presently serves as the Chief Executive of the AEO in the UK, a position he has held since 2014. He also has a long track record in UFI, having chaired the Associations’ Committee for six years and has served on UFI’s Executive Committee during these years as well. He knows UFI and the UFI team well, he knows our industry well, and we are all sure he will fit right into our UFI culture and team. I want to congratulate and welcome Chris, and I want to thank all my colleagues on the UFI Trio and Executive Committee as well as the UFI management for “burning the midnight oil” in these past few weeks on top of everything else – it has allowed us to move swiftly and diligently on this vital issue, in true UFI fashion.

But I want to close – also in true UFI fashion – with an update on Cologne and our Global Congress. There, we will discuss how we can turn the changes that we are all facing into chances and opportunities. To understand these changes, we have to make sure we “get” them. That is why I was thrilled when Kai shared with me that we will welcome Anna Rosling on stage in Cologne. Together with the late Hans Rosling and Ola Rosling she set up the “Gapminder” foundation, which is all about using and understanding statistics and other information about social, economic, and environmental development at local, national, and global levels. What sounds “dry” won’t be, I can vouch for that personally. If you have not yet signed up for Cologne, please do so now.

Yours,

Geoff Dickinson, UFI President