Speakers
Mark Shashoua
Having co-founded the business (then called ITE Group) in 1991, Mark returned as CEO in 2017 with a strong vision for the company’s potential and initiated a Group-wide transformation to future-proof the business. That transformation saw the company radically evolve. It changed from siloed working to a centralised model of best practice, from an emerging markets focus to a portfolio 95% rooted in advanced economies, and from a sprawling portfolio of mixed quality products to a streamlined focus on only market-leading events. This led to the average revenue per event increasing more than eight-fold, and attention is now on expanding the company’s digital products. Thanks to Mark’s leadership, the Hyve of today has resilience, diversity and enormous scalability.
Transforming businesses is in Mark’s DNA and prior to re-joining Hyve, Mark was CEO of i2i Events Group, the event arm of Ascential plc, where he led the internationalisation and diversiļ¬cation of the business. It was at i2i that he first adopted a market leading event only approach that led to turning a declining business to one of consistently high organic growth. This was supplemented by a number of leading acquisitions including Money20/20, which grew substantially under his guidance.
Mark is driven by his ambition to reimagine the events industry, disrupting it through digitisation. His aim is to transform everyone’s expectations of what’s really possible at events and help customers to realise the game changing possibilities that Hyve events hold for businesses and beyond.
John Gulliver
John was appointed as the Company’s COO in October 2017. With effect from 1 October 2020 John took up the newly-formed combined role of CFO and COO. He oversaw the rollout of best practice as part of the TAG programme. John also has responsibility for implementing and maintaining our best practice operating model across our global network of exhibitions.
Prior to joining, John held senior financial positions in the media sector, including Interim CFO at Emap/Top Right Group and also Divisional CFO at Ascential, and CFO of i2i Events Group from June 2012 to June 2017, where he worked alongside Mark Shashoua, CEO. Prior to that, John was Finance Director at Precise Media from 2008 to 2010.
John’s background in finance and operational transformation, as well as his experience in the events sector, underpins his passion for bringing about positive change and disruption within the industry. John enjoys working in a change-led environment and loves the passion, energy and sense of achievement that occur as the company, and the people working within it, realise their potential.
Marina Calero
Marina joined Hyve in October 2021 and is responsible for creating a new Investor Relations function within the Group to lead the engagement between Hyve and its investment community, while educating the market about Hyve’s unique proposition, as we recover from COVID-19 and explore opportunities beyond.
Throughout her 20 year career in Investor Relations advisory, Marina created and put into practice numerous strategies to communicate clients’ often complex value propositions, across a broad spectrum of sectors and geographies. Marina recently completed a three-year secondment as IR Director for McCarthy and Stone, the largest owner, developer and manager of retirement communities in the UK.
Having advised on over 30 IPOs, raising over US$40bn, Marina has a strong track record of providing counselling on strategic positioning for transactions in Europe and emerging markets.
Marina is passionate about bringing the right people together – be it investors and management teams or IR industry professionals. She is a founder and host of an international peer-to-peer network of senior IR professionals aimed at experience sharing to foster further development of best practice at the time when the IR industry is impacted by complex regulatory changes, the rise of ESG and challenges associated with the pandemic.
Jessica Natinsky
Jessica joined Hyve in June 2021, working in both Divisional strategy and Group transaction support before being appointed as the Group Strategy Director in February 2022. Jessica leads the Group Strategy function and is responsible for the implementation of Hyve's overarching strategic goals, including the formulation of M&A, product and go-to-market strategies across the business, and ensuring alignment across the Group's key strategic areas.
Prior to Hyve, Jessica spent six years in strategy consulting where she gained experience navigating complex strategic issues and developing impactful and actionable recommendations for organisations across industries, with a focus on the TMT sector. Most recently, Jessica was an Engagement Manager at LEK, working in both the US and UK. During her time in consulting, Jessica led a broad range of projects including: buy and sell-side diligence, strategic planning, business model development and growth opportunity assessments.
Jessica is passionate about driving meaningful growth and value within a business through collaborative, data driven projects that address rapidly evolving and complex strategic challenges.
Rachel Brodie
Rachel leads the EdTech and Natural Resources division at Hyve Group, which she joined in July 2018. She started her career in education, teaching English at a university in Mexico City, before moving into educational publishing. For seven years she commissioned and published English Language Teaching materials, most recently as Publisher of Adult ELT at Macmillan Education.
Rachel joined i2i Events Group in 2013 to lead the expansion of Bett globally, launching events in Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. Since then she has worked across the EdTech portfolio of events, launching in new markets and driving significant growth across various channels, including digital, exhibitions, conferences and awards.