NEW YORK, March 29, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Leading information services company, Questex, has repositioned and renamed its Event Operations Division. Now named Event Performance, this team supports Questex’s strategy of focusing on the experience economy with a laser focus on customer engagement at all touch points on and offline.
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“As the world returns to live events we are taking this opportunity to refocus and align our team with Questex’s commitment to ensuring the best customer experience. This change in addition to our Q Activate platform allows us to combine event and content intelligence with trends and demographics to deliver superior events that result in real business buyers and sellers on and offline,” said Kate Spellman, CMO, Questex.
Kirstin Lewis, leads the global Event Performance team and is joined by new leadership talent and a new management structure. Chris Correa is responsible for Tradeshows, Rowan Scahill manages the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) events, Dawn Walton leads Conferences and Hosted Buyer Events and Molly Witges heads Customer Engagement. The Event Performance team delivers a multi-channel approach working collaboratively with Questex’s Center of Excellence, which includes Customer Experience, Marketing Performance, Content Innovation and Product & Technology. Questex delivered nine tradeshows, 21 conferences and six hosted buyer events in 2021 including IHIF (International Hospitality Investment Forum), Bar & Restaurant Expo and Sensors Converge.
Lewis drives the new Event Performance team in all Questex verticals – Hospitality, Wellness, Travel, Education, Life Sciences, Healthcare and Technology, Media & Telecommunications – connecting live events with digital and hybrid experiences. Using Q Activate, Lewis is able to strategically lead her team by focusing on industry trends that place the customer at the center as well as implement new systems and processes. Lewis brings strong executive experience from managing verticals and market events, small networking events to multiple large tradeshows. Lewis understand business needs and strategies at an executive level from creation through implementation and has the ability to develop relationships at every level from industry leaders through the buyer’s needs. Lewis is a master at collaborating with internal team and external vendors and industry leaders to connect all points for maximum value.
“I am passionate about creating event experiences from beginning to end, which means both digital and live event experience. Questex’s business is centered around bringing buyers and sellers together. Meeting people face-to-face, learning about new innovations and trends, it’s all vital to the advancement of business,” Lewis said. “I have the best team in the business. I am constantly inspired by them – their innovation, creativity and collaboration.”
Key Members of the Questex Event Performance Team
Correa brings a deep knowledge of Questex to all aspects of event operations. He leads the overall operations of service management and exhibitor services for Questex’s tradeshow events. Correa helps drive the events operation strategy as well as provide leadership, project management and oversight on all logistics for the tradeshows such as LDI, International Beauty Show (IBS) and International Esthetics, Cosmetics & Spa Conferences (IECSC). Correa understands the step-by-step workflow to produce a calendar exceeding 100 events per year to bring communities together. Correa’s exhibitor services team ensures quality service and operational performance to meet and exceed customer expectations.
Scahill leads the Questex’s European event operations team, where each year thousands of the world’s leading minds connect in Europe at Questex events that span investment, buyer programs, management and technology summits and private networking functions. She has vast industry experience managing and delivering successful corporate events including conferences, seminars, tradeshows, award ceremonies and product launches from both Good Thinking and Don’t Panic Projects Ltd. In her role as founder and director of Good Thinking, Scahill also launched and delivered a number of B2B events including food & drink and artisan festivals. Scahill has a performance history of successful events in the hotel invest vertical including International Hospitality Investment Forum (IHIF), The Annual Hotel Conference (AHC) and Resort & Residential Hospitality Forum (R&R), and was instrumental in delivering Questex’s first hybrid event in 2020. Scahill is an active member of the Association of Event Organizers and participates in a number of working groups including health & safety and cross association sustainability. Her expertise lies in operations, project management, budget management, event production and stakeholder management.
Walton leads the event operations for Questex’s buyer events and the conferences within tradeshows. Questex’s buyer events connect suppliers with senior decision makers that have an immediate need to purchase, while the conferences deliver targeted learning to attendees in a vertical market. Walton is a Certified Meeting Planner (CMP) with a proven track record in live and digital productions, client services and process transformation. Walton came to Questex from Total Event Solutions, which she founded, owned and ran for over 20 years. With live to virtual pivots and the overall increase in virtual events, Walton joined Questex to help build its digital events strategy, she successfully produced and launched 60 virtual events. Questex’s conferences and hosted buyer events. A few include Fierce Digital Pharma East, VIBE Conference, Global Meeting & Incentive Travel Exchange (GMITE), SIBEC North America and Spatec North America. In 2022, Walton’s team, managed by Kendra Counts Group Operations Director, CMP, will produce 25 conference programs, 11 global hosted buyer events and 12 conference programs within tradeshows.
Witges, a CMP and a Digital Event Strategist (DES), is responsible for driving attendee and exhibitor engagement across all Questex events. In this newly created position, Witges utilizes her planning and solution provider expertise to develop industry leading event opportunities to build personalized enhanced user experiences. Witges has the unique understanding of the event world from sales solutions, technology, product development and meeting logistics perspectives, and the ability to match event strategy with the right technology which will ultimately lead to driving value and maximizing return on investment for all stakeholders. Witges was most recently the Director, Strategic Solutions at Maritz Global Events where she helped clients create the right services to their challenges. Earlier in her career, she was the Director, Strategic Accounts at Eved and held several positions at the American Dental Association and Exprient. In 2021, Witges served as president of the PCMA (Professional Convention Management Association) Greater Midwest Chapter and won Community Advocate of the Year in the 2022 PCMA Professional Excellence awards as a result of her collaboration efforts to lead the hospitality industry through continuing COVID-19 challenges.
Questex’s Asia events continue to be managed out of the Questex Asia office due to the unique needs of its communities. Several Questex Asia events include: CFO Innovation Forum, CMO Innovation Forum and CDO Innovation Forum.
About Questex
Questex helps people live better and longer. Questex brings people together in the markets that help people live better: travel, hospitality and wellness; the industries that help people live longer: life science and healthcare; and the technologies that enable and fuel these new experiences. We live in the experience economy – connecting our ecosystem through live events, surrounded by data insights and digital communities. We deliver experience and real results. It happens here.
Media Contact
Kate Spellman
Chief Marketing Officer
Questex
kspellman@questex.com
212 895 8488