Bavarian finance minister Albert Füracker (pictured) has taken over as chair of NürnbergMesse Supervisory Board from Nuremberg Lord Mayor Dr Ulrich Maly.
Füracker said of the planned change, effective 1 October: “NürnbergMesse has risen to the Champions League of exhibition companies over the past few decades. Its current investment initiative shows that this success story is also going to continue with panache over the next 10 years. I’m already looking forward to this new assignment.”
The regular appointment reflects the interplay between the company’s principal shareholders: every three years, the chair of the Supervisory Board alternates from the City of Nuremberg to the Free State of Bavaria – and then back again.
Dr Ulrich Maly, Füracker’s predecessor, said of the collaboration: “The growth of NürnbergMesse benefits not just Nuremberg and the Metropolitan Region, but all of Bavaria. The mere fact that the trade shows and conferences at the Nuremberg Exhibition Center account for about 30% of all hotel stays and about 15,000 full-time jobs underscores our trade shows’ economic significance.”
Dr Maly has, also of 1 October, assumed the position of deputy chairman of the Supervisory Board.
Füracker added: “NürnbergMesse is one of the Free State of Bavaria’s most important investments – because its success especially benefits small and medium businesses in our state. That applies no matter whether we’re talking about the leading exhibitions and conferences in Nuremberg, the many sales platforms that NürnbergMesse operates around the world, or construction orders at the exhibition centre here at home. And the fact that the company is aiming for another sales record in 2018 shows that the best is yet to come.”
The 12-member Board comprises five representatives each from the company’s two principal shareholders, the Free State of Bavaria and the City of Nuremberg, as well as one representative each from the Nuremberg Chamber of Industry and Commerce for Central Franconia and the Central Franconian Chamber of Craft Trades.
As the workforce has come to exceed the threshold of 500 employees, the Board will include a further one-third of employee representatives, in compliance with Germany’s One-Third Participation Act, and will number 18 members from the New Year.
NürnbergMesse is one of the 15 largest exhibition companies in the world with a portfolio covering some 120 national and international exhibitions and congresses and approximately 40 sponsored pavilions in Nuremberg and worldwide. Every year, around 30,000 exhibitors (international share 41%) and up to 1.4m visitors (international share of trade visitors 24%) participate in events staged by the NürnbergMesse Group, which has subsidiaries in China, North America, Brazil, Italy and India.
