The ISPO team is getting a boost with the addition of two new Community Managers, Franziska Zindl and Bastian Dietz. They will be in charge of the forward-looking areas “Digitize – Retail & Industry Services” and “Snowsports & Bike” and are part of a new team structure that takes account of the extended ISPO network. After all, another leading trade fair will also be held in Munich from 2019, namely OutDoor by ISPO. It will be headed by Markus Hefter as Exhibition Group Director, who is already in charge of ISPO Munich. ISPO introduces the new colleagues.
Ever since OutDoor by ISPO came to Munich, attracting much attention, the platform with the largest international trade fair for the outdoor sector now has a new person in charge. Markus Hefter is assuming responsibility for the event, which will be take place in Munich from June 30 to July 3, 2019. Hefter looks back on 20 years’ experience as a B2B and B2C marketing and business development specialist. From January 2006 to October 2008, he was Project Director Outdoor. Furthermore, Hefter is in charge of ISPO Munich, the world’s largest multi-segment trade fair for the sports business, for ten years. He reports to Tobias Gröber who has been Executive Director of the Business Unit Consumergoods at Messe München since January 2004. In this role he is responsible for the ISPO Group. Gröber came 1997 to the company and was appointed Project Manager for ISPO in 1999.
Community Managers as contacts for brands and manufacturers
Markus Hefter is now also heading up a team of five Community Managers who will be the main contacts all year round for brands and manufacturers for the Outdoor, Snowsports & Bike, Sports Fashion / Performance / Health & Fitness, Textrends, Sourcing & Manufacturing, and Digitize – Retail & Industry Services areas. As key account managers for their areas, they will advise clients about the trade fair offers in Munich and China as well as services within the ISPO network (available 365 days a year), from ISPO Open Innovation to the ISPO Award and native advertising. They will also design and organize community specific events and be in constant touch with important stakeholders and industry multipliers. Supporting the community and further developing the areas for which they are responsible are the main tasks of the team, which now includes the two new members.
Franziska Zindl, who joined in October 2018, is responsible for the new Digitize – Retail & Industry Services area. The first digital event in the sports business industry now has its own platform with the ISPO Digitize Summit held annually in the summer and will also be back at ISPO Munich in 2019. As a digital expert, Zindl will build up the new community. During her time at Messe Berlin from 2014 to 2017, her responsibilities included working as project manager for “tools Berlin”, a project that brings digitalization to life through workshops and exhibitions. She gained further experience at the “Panorama Berlin” fashion market place, for which she established digital solutions.
Bastian Dietz will be responsible from November 1, 2018 for the Snowsports & Bike area. Dietz joins ISPO as a qualified industry specialist in the sports and bicycle market. Having worked at LEATT and ION Bike and founded his own sports PR agency Alternative 138, he has built up extensive expertise and a large network, in particular in the bike and winter sports areas.
The Community team is completed by the Kim Scholze, Constanze Fuchs and Engin Müller-Oezer as known and trusted contacts. Kim Scholze is responsible for Outdoor and contributes many years of industry experience after working at Bench, Salomon and Nitro. Constanze Fuchs is responsible for the Sports Fashion, Performance and Health & Fitness area. With over 12 years’ ISPO experience she has the necessary know-how for this important segment. Engin Müller-Oezer is responsible for Textrends, Sourcing & Manufacturing. Müller-Oezer has been a member of the ISPO team for 18 years and has extensive industry knowledge.
Other contacts in the ISPO network are project manager Elena Jasper with Maijka Patuzzi for ISPO Shanghai and ISPO Beijing. David Badalec is responsible for digital ISPO products as well as ISPO Award, ISPO Brandnew and ISPO Textrends. Christoph Rapp supports ISPO Digitize as International Sales & Retail Manager and Project Manager. In her new role as head of the team, Saskia Rettenbacher and her colleagues support all ISPO projects with the cross-cutting “ISPO Shared Team”.
INFO: ISPO
