min magazine 2008 Most Intriguing: Nancy Walsh
Friday, November 7, 2008

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Nancy Walsh
Executive VP, Reed Exhibitions, North America

When Nancy Walsh jumped from the sales team to general management at the Cahners’ Exhibition Group (now Reed Exhibitions) she finally had the chance to showcase the full complement of her skills. “I became involved in marketing and finance,she says. “All that was new to me, but they turned out to be my strong suits.”

She now runs 80 percent of the company’s North American business. “I manage relationships and strategize with our partners on a full portfolio of events,” she says. Walsh’s team will execute 40 events this year for a spectrum of brands. “We’re happy with our growth—especially in the luxury and lifestyle categories,” she says.

Walsh-directed events like New York ComiCon are expanding evidence of her formula’s success. “That was a launch that has more than doubled in size in just three years,” she says. “The number of attendees has jumped from 40,000 to more than 100,000 in that time.”

The Walsh era has seen Reed Exhibitions grow from a $500,000 business to a monolith that generates more than $14 million annually in sponsorship and advertising sales—in under a decade. “I focus on what we can do to draw buyers into booths,” she says. “I have day-to-day meetings with members of my staff and outside vendors and do in-depth studies of venues to determine what our partners need and how we can best achieve our objectives. Without that level of communication, none of this would have been possible.”







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