Dear colleagues, dear members, 

It is time to thank – you. Each and every one of you. For reading these short texts regularly over the years. Since 2015, I have penned around 100 of these CEO updates, reporting on UFI activities and developments as well as sharing some thoughts around issues that impact our industry and ourselves.

From the terror attacks of 2015 to Global Exhibitions Day and Next Generation Leaders. From outstanding meetings to the Pope, and to COVID. From UFI Barometer and economic impact data to geopolitics. From augmented reality to GenAI.

Elsewhere in this last UFI Info of the year, you will find, as usual, UFI’s “5 trends to watch” for 2025. For this, my last column as the CEO of our unique association, allow me to share “5 parting observations”:

A good association is a community
The purpose of an association is to serve its members—every membership fee is a business investment in representation and growth. The best (and some say, only) way to really activate this is to be active, especially to attend events, join programmes, and share research.

Giving means growing
UFI’s global industry data has an excellent reputation – and for a simple reason. Hundreds of businesses, worldwide, share their data and insights for it, and then compare the global data set against their own. UFI’s awards generate many excellent good practice cases year by year. And Net Zero Carbon Events is taking this collective advance through sharing to new heigths.

The team is the star
No single person can achieve much – noone can run an event on her or his own, or deliver a complex project. UFI could always count on its staff to do a good job, and many colleagues have grown well into bigger roles and/or other careers inside and outside. Working aligned and together, today UFI is blessed with the best team I have seen, adding all the strengths of our respective colleagues.

Agility is fact not feature
Every day can bring an unexpected challenge – and the past ten years have not been short of these: from terror to wars, or from floodings and hurricanes to the COVID pandemic. We often bemoan the fact that there is no academic career path in our industry. But this is giving us a unique strength: Name ANY other sector (ok, maybe logistics) where, literally, people with every kind of education and training can excel over time. The variety of skills and experiences is what makes us so resilient.

Change is eternal
I plead guilty: I have sometimes used slides that show floorplans from the 19th and the 21st century side by side…feeding into the biggest misconception of our industry that we don’t change. Of course – nothing is further from the truth. Our big themes, headlines, and topics are permanent (Changing customers! Trade pattern! New technologies!), but the tasks and challenges evolve.

Change is good. Change brings new perspectives and new opportunities. I had the privilege to drive and benefit from this for UFI since 2015. It’s been an honour, and also a lot of fun.

In my first-ever column, I promised I would work that UFI gives you value for the time you give UFI. I hope I could deliver. It’s been a pleasure working for all of you, and with so many of you!

Chris Skeith – over to you, and all the best!

Best regards,

Kai Hattendorf, UFI CEO