First published in Exhibition World Issue 6 - December 2024 / January 2025

tfconnect MD Miranda Martin highlights where the demands and opportunities may lie for those looking to recruit

Looking back on 2024 we spent the earlier months of the year helping our clients find the right talent to create robust infrastructure around marketing and performance. Companies who had experienced significant growth post Covid were at the stage where they needed and could afford to put serious senior marketing and transformation leaders in place. The ambition was to up their game around data and infrastructure, to drive commercial and marketing performance, increased productivity and efficiency, to enable them to sustain further growth and higher profits.

Our focus at the higher level switched to more commercial roles as the year progressed, with a demand from clients for strong leaders to steer growth across the board. We were charged with finding Portfolio Directors to autonomously strategize and generate new revenue, to drive performance across organic growth, the addition of adjacent content to shows, new launches, geo-adapts etc.

We were asked to find launch specialists by ambitious, growth-minded industry players, who have identified opportunities to launch new products through detailed market analysis and the introduction of disruptive formats. Watch this space and see these products come to market in 2025.

Many clients required our support in growing teams in Event, Sales and Marketing Management positions, as shows and businesses have continued to see positive performance through 2024, identified opportunities for continued growth in 2025, and wish to put the right talent in place to deliver this.

We are expecting continued growth in 2025, with more launches, geo-adapts and consolidation in sectors through mergers and acquisitions (M&A), JV’s, adjacent launches, organic growth etc.

We have been asked to find specialists to launch flagship product and offices into new territories, especially the Middle East and the US, and expect to see lots of this sort of activity in 2025. Especially so where Private Equity funded businesses are seeking fast growth, high return and have the appetite, support, and infrastructure in place to sustain this sort of activity.

All of our clients are interested in M&A opportunities. In some instances, we’re facilitating introductions for those wishing to buy and sell shows or seeking investment for show ideas. These opportunities are often linked to succession planning. We are looking forward to seeing some exciting launches in 2025, as a result of successful ‘match-making’ of people with show ideas and the right organisers.

We’ve seen a great deal of M&A activity in 2024 and there is a strong pipeline for 2025. M&A means change. Change creates opportunity. Companies know that when a sale happens, a certain number of the senior management team will leave, and that they need secure management teams in place at point of sale, to take the business forward. We expect much of our focus in 2025 to be in supporting our clients in succession planning and structuring the right teams at the right times.

So to close, we are incredibly busy, totally driven by the buoyancy of the market. There are lots of opportunities out there for great talent, and for companies looking to grow through enhancing their teams.