Charlie McCurdy is president and CEO of Informa Markets, subsidiary of the UK-based, £8bn Informa Plc and the world’s largest organiser of trade shows. He has more than 30 years’ experience in B2B media and events and joined Informa in 2015 – just after it had paid almost $2bn for the US organisers Hanley Wood and Penton, and three years before the £3.8bn acquisition of UBM. With that deal, Informa leapfrogged RX to become the exhibitions market leader.
McCurdy was previously CEO at George Little Management (GLM) under private equity ownership. He grew and, in 2010, sold Canon Communications to UBM. He had graduated from Yale in English and with an MBA from Columbia. He started out as an editorial assistant at Macmillan Inc but changed direction to, eventually, become CFO. He left Macmillan soon after its 1988 acquisition by the late Robert Maxwell. McCurdy became co co-founder with KKR of the former Primedia newspaper, magazine and information company which, in 1996, had revenue of $1.4bn and 7,200 employees.
In 2019, Informa Markets had revenue / EBITDA of £1.4bn / £543m – 50% and 60% respectively of the Informa Plc total. Some 40% of revenue came from North America, 30% from Asia and 10% from the Middle East. It has more than 450 international B2B brands and is forecast to achieve £895m revenue in 2022. It is assumed that some kind of return to the ‘normal’ level of exhibitions – and profit – will be achieved by 2024. That’s the challenge for Informa Markets whose £5.6bn of acquisitions had delivered only £1.5bn of profit before the pandemic shutdown in 2020. It is assumed that the listed Informa Plc – as much a publisher and information provider as trade show organiser – will become a role model for the integration of live events and digital media as the exhibitions market recovers.
What was your first job in media and what did it teach you?
Fresh out of college, I took a job as a junior editor at a small, independent trade book publisher in New York for several years. Among the many interesting books we published was one called “The Fourth Man”, which exposed Anthony Blunt (Queen Elizabeth’s curator of art) as having been part of a Soviet spy ring. Owing to UK libel laws, the book had to be published in the US. This certainly taught me the value of a free press. I enjoyed the experience of working at a small publisher like this, where editorial, production, marketing, pricing, sales, and sub rights decisions were all made in the same room. I really learned the business.
What’s the story of Primedia?
After finishing business school, I joined the diversified publisher Macmillan Inc. I hoped one day to run an imprint. Life doesn’t always go as planned. I ended up being the lead corporate financial officer in time to help craft a defence against a hostile takeover by Robert Maxwell. After he bought Macmillan, I turned down his offer to run the Maxwell Group’s finances in the US (wisely, in retrospect) and left to co-found the company that became Primedia.
With backing from Henry Kravis’s firm KKR, we set out to build a major diversified publishing and information group. It was a niche media strategy before the term was coined. Among the many deals we did was to buy EMAP’s ill-starred US magazine venture, which set Primedia up as the largest special-interest periodical publisher in the US – just in time for the internet to disrupt the industry. We experimented with a wide variety of digital formats, a few of which worked out very well, and a number of which were (let’s say) learning experiences. I also saw then that the small trade show business of Primedia Business continued to trade well through the dotcom disruption. I left Primedia with a resolve to go more deeply into exhibitions, which led of course to two subsequent platforms: Canon Communications (ultimately sold to UBM) and GLM (sold to Emerald).
What’s special about Informa Markets?
After a bit of a break after GLM to spend much appreciated family time, I happened to meet Stephen Carter (CEO of Informa Plc) when he was looking to hire someone to lead Informa’s exhibitions business. I saw this as a business, parts of which could be amenable to the kind of data-led digital expansion I had worked through previously in my career. So fast forward to the present, Informa Markets is certainly the world’s largest exhibition organizer (which is starting to mean a lot again!). We also have a growing global network of events across a dozen or so commercial verticals. And we have a robust digital services business that is growing rapidly and offering a parallel marketing channel to exhibitions. Which adds up to evolving into a world-leading B2B market access provider across the range of customers’ go-to-market budgets.
How important will virtual events and digital media be to the future of trade shows?
I believe the trade show is proving to be a highly resilient and effective format. Very broadly across the world and across the industry, participation (as we reopen) is undeniably enthusiastic. The question is, what industry hasn’t used digital connectivity and information flow to improve the customer experience? Why would trade show participants be different from what you and I and everyone we know does multiple times a day to stay connected and informed? Virtual, or digitally delivered, events show promise in many areas of the B2B conference sector. For trade exhibitions, it’s the combination of a powerful and effective physical event with productivity enabled by related digital services that is proving most compelling…what we call Smart Events.
What are the challenges of operating trade shows in multiple countries?
The basic value proposition and participant experience of a trade show is highly similar from Sao Paulo to Shanghai. Local practices certainly vary – but this keeps it interesting.
What is your primary role in the company?
Over the years, I’ve been more successful than not in building value for customers, colleagues, and owners. How? By finding ways to bring additional services to bear on a given customer base, and helping them spend their money wisely. Typically, this involves aligning teams behind the positive impact of data-enhanced digital services alongside traditional formats.
You have managed media businesses owned privately, publicly, and by private equity. How have those different owners affected your management style?
Actually, my management style hasn’t varied that much. It’s always about the point I made just now. It’s more about having the flexibility to work within the culture of an organization towards the goal.
What’s the best lesson you have learned in business?
Treating people fairly is the path to sustained success. Colleagues, Customers, Suppliers, deal counterparts.
What are your favourite media?
Lots…brand-name digital news sites and alerts; but what I enjoy most is the intense and gratifying experience of the live event.
Which company (other than your own) do you most admire and why?
I admire companies that know what they do, and do it well – while at the same time being resilient. A good illustration is Walmart. It was a solid, regional retailer in the US, and before other more established retailers recognized the value of data, logistics, and sourcing in driving value for customers. And they executed relentlessly. As a result, they redrew the retail map in America and their model had global influence.
