Reed Exhibitions' Chairman Mike Rusbridge Retiring at End of 2015
June 22, 2015
After 27 years with Reed Exhibitions, Chairman Mike Rusbridge will retire at the end of 2015. Chet Bruchett was promoted to CEO of the company earlier in the year.
“Mike’s achievement at Reed Exhibitions has been outstanding,” said Erik Engstrom, RELX Group CEO. “Over the two decades he has led the company and built the world’s largest exhibitions business, delivering consistent growth over 20 years. I wish him well for the future.”
Rusbridge joined Reed Exhibitions as its CEO Europe in 1988, becoming president of Europe and Asia in 1994 and appointed Chairman & CEO in 1996.
During Rusbridge’ s time as CEO and chairman, Reed Exhibitions has grown from a $400m to $1.5bn company and currently organizes 500 events in 43 countries, across 43 industry sectors with more than 7 million participants.
At Reed, Rusbridge has spearheaded 150-plus acquisitions, including the 1990 acquisition of MIDEM in France, the biggest acquisition in the industry at that date and the acquisition of Miller Freeman in 2000, positioning Reed Exhibitions as the world’s leading exhibition organiser.
He also led the company into glowbal growth, with acquisitions and launches stretching worldwide.
During Rusbridge’s tenure, the digital age has had a profound impact on business and customer needs within the industry.
Reed now offers multi-channel opportunities and has moved, through the advanced use of data and digital capabilities, from being a service provider to pro-actively matching buyer and seller together and developing, through its quality brands, strong industry communities.
“I find the events industry as exciting and stimulating today as I first found it 36 years ago! Reed Exhibitions’ achievements have been driven by a great management team and a very talented group of people," Rusbridge said.
He added, "I am very proud of what we have created and leave the Company in the extremely capable hands of the CEO, Chet Burchett, who has worked for RX for the past 11 years in the Americas. There is strong continuity of management and we are now realising significant advantage from behaving as one company worldwide. RX has a very exciting future as we develop a digitally enabled data driven business, creating powerful business relationships for our customers.”
Rusbridge will continue as chairman until December 2015.
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