Back of the net
Leaders of the future at the UK ’ s biggest privately owned events organiser , Easyfairs , are being nurtured for the top – with some unexpected help from a former England footballer – as Emily Wallin found out
Not every strategy meeting starts with a training session from an England footballer – but leaders of the future at the world ’ s biggest privately owned exhibitions company – were treated to an inspirational lesson from former player and manager Kevin Keegan .
Keegan led a module for Easyfairs senior leadership training programme at the companies Twickenham offices . While the connection between successful exhibitions and scoring goals might not be obvious , Keegan showed the team how the challenges of successful leadership were comparable .
Twelve of Easyfairs brightest stars were picked for the course – training them to become the company ’ s senior leadership team of the future .
Keegan was full of praise for his pupils . “ They were very attentive ,” he said .
“ You can only tell them how you did it , every leader ’ s different . The key from the day is you learn from everybody you meet . They will all have something to say that ’ s worth listening to .”
For CEO Matt Benyon investing in his people is a no brainer – not only are they supporting and nurturing their staff – but giving them the encouragement to retain them .
“ We launched our Easyfairs Leadership Development Program as succession planning at the end of the day ,” he said . “ It ’ s learning to empower our heads of sales , heads of marketing , heads of operations , heads of technology . We put a program together , which is our senior leadership team of tomorrow . We want to train them and empower them now .
“ We ’ ve obviously been on a really steep growth curve since we launched .
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