UFI expands Paris team

Exhibition association UFI has hired two new staff, Nicolette Elia-Beissel and Jana Hofmann (pictured, main). Elia-Bessel (pictured below) joins as programme manager. She became part of the exhibition industry when she joined RAI Exhibitions and Events (now known as Thebe Reed Events & Exhibitions) as project coordinator, a subsidiary of the RAI group in Amsterdam, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. During her time at RAI, she worked more specifically on Travel and Tourism shows, with a portfolio that included the South African Tourism pavilions at the various international trade shows such as EIBTM and ITB. After two years, she was promoted to project manager, working on the international shows as well as her own show in Sandton Johannesburg: Meetings Africa. Meanwhile, Hofmann is joining UFI as events manager. Having worked as a project manager for the German-based trade show organiser fairtrade Messe GmbH for the last six years, Hoffman managed various projects in an international exhibition environment, with a focus on emerging markets such as Ghana, Iran or Nigeria. “Both Nicolette and Jana will bring years of industry experience to UFI, having worked in different national and regional exhibition markets”, says Sonia Thomas, UFI’s director of operations. “This experience will prove particularly useful as UFI continues to organise numerous events for the exhibition industry across the globe, ranging from the UFI Global Congress to the UFI Global CEO Summit, from educational forums to regional conferences. This falls in line with UFI’s key objective to provide platforms for the actors of the international exhibition industry to network and share experience, to learn and acquire new skills.” As one of their first tasks, both Nicolette and Jana will be join the UFI team and work at the 83rd UFI Global Congress in Shanghai from 9-12 November.