LEGEND EXHIBITIONS LIMITED

With more than 30 years experience in publishing and events, Legend Exhibitions Limited brings together a team that not only has a wealth of experience, but is passionate about the business of exhibitions and delivers successful and widely admired events.

Legend Exhibitions have many years of experience delivering The management team has run over 50 exhibitions in the UK and overseas ranging from The Restaurant Show and Bathrooms & Kitchens Expo to The Hospitality Technology Show, and Publishing Expo.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THE MANAGEMENT TEAM

JOHN BEDNALL
John Bednall, Legend Exhibition’s MD, was also the Managing Director of Asia Business Events where he launched the successful Retail Asia Expo in 2009

John started his magazine publishing career at Haymarket Publishing in the marketing and media division then went to launch the USA company for them.  He also worked as a publisher of consumer and medical titles in Holland.  He was a founder of Quantum Business Media which was a MBO from EMAP.  Moving to the exhibitions side as Managing Director he ran The Restaurant Show for a decade and was responsible for numerous other launches such as Total Publishing and Bathrooms and Kitchens Expo.  In 2002 he left to launch an events company in Hong Kong that launched Restaurant & Bar Hong Kong and Retail Asia Expo which included Retail Technology Expo and Retail Design Expo.  That company became a joint venture with Diversified Business Communications and in July 2011 he sold his interest in it to focus 100% on Retail Business Technology Expo.

NICK FIELD
Nick Field’s background was originally in magazine publishing, but he moved into the exhibition industry in 1994 with the launch of Destinations, now the leading consumer travel event owned by The Sunday Times.  Since then he has worked on a wide variety of exhibitions including the Softworld series of IT events and exhibitions for the confectionary, hospitality, building and transport industries. In 2005 he co-founded Legend Exhibitions Limited with John Bednall and subsequently launched the leading magazine publishing event, Publishing Expo.

CINDY HEDMANN
Cindy has a wealth of exhibition experience both in independent and corporate companies starting her exhibition career at EMAP and recently spent three years CMP (now UBM).  Her experience is mainly in trade shows and events including The Restaurant Show; Bar Show; Care Shows, Hospitality Technology; Publican Conference and Total Publishing but also some consumer event experience, particularly as part of the original team that launched Taste of London.  She has experience in many disciplines including operations, full event management, marketing and publishing but her passion is marketing and she was proud to win the CMP Marketer of the Year in her first year joining CMP.

EMMA EASTERBROOK
Emma Easterbrook is the Communications Director for Retail Business Technology Expo and Cards & Payments Solutions.  She brings with her over 15 years of marketing consultancy experience, and for the last eight years she has focused purely on retail, supply chain and logistics, advising clients on strategy and managing Pan-European programmes.  She brings with her an extensive network of global press contacts.
Emma is a senior member of the management team, managing the PR and social media for the event and is responsible for exhibitor liaison and support as well as the extensive seminar programme, involving consultation with the show’s Steering Committees. Previously Emma headed up the PR practise at Fieldworks Marketing, a leading retail marketing agency.

MATT BRADLEY
Matt Bradley has worked in the exhibition industry for over 10 years organising both trade and consumer events in every top London exhibition centre.  He has strong background in the retail market, starting his career working on Mode - The Contemporary Design Show at the Business Design Centre before moving to Clarion Retail Events working on Top Drawer, Harrogate Home and Gift and Fifth Room.  He was instrumental in the rebranding of Top Drawer Summer to Pulse turning it into an internationally attended trade show with over 600 exhibitors and 15,000 visitors in its first year.  Matt moved into the consumer market, partnering with the Sunday Times and IPC Media to launch The Sunday Times Home Show in London’s Excel.

KEITH NEWTON
Keith has extensive experience of the retail industry and brings to Retail Technology Business Expo and Cards & Payments Solutions a thorough understanding of the issues facing retailers in today’s very competitive market. His background includes several years working in retail with the Sears Group, where he was responsible for managing a team rolling out EPoS to over 1200 High Street footwear stores. He has over 12 years experience selling software and services to tier 1 and tier 2 retailers, and in this time helped to establish USA based Advanced Cybernetics as a leading software supplier to the UK non-food retail market. In addition to heading up the retail software division at Sema Group, Business Development at Armature,  Keith spent seven years with JDA Software generating new customers in Holland, Belgium, Denmark, France, South Africa and the Middle East.  For the last four years  he has been working in exhibitions and conferences targeting specific topics for the retail sector in particular as Sales Director on the retail fraud and loss prevention conferences. Plus a Yorkshireman that’s happy to buy a round, whatever next....

MIYA KNIGHTS
Miya Knights has been writing about business use of technology for over a decade now. Having covered enterprise application software for VNU News Centre and retail, transport and IT recruitment for Computing magazine, she is now editor of Retail Technology magazine. She has also written for Techworld, CIO UK, Computer Weekly, Computing, The Independent, The Financial Times, IT PRO, Cloud PRO, ZDNet, eWeek Europe, BNET and v3.co.uk in a freelance capacity, as well as providing technology PR, marketing and media consultancy.

PETER LUMSDEN
Peter Lumsden, a retail IT marketing specialist, is a strategically important addition to the Retail Business Technology Expo and Cards & Payments Solutions team, as the organisation looks to extend its European reach, bringing with him a list of enviable European contacts from across the industry. Peter’s previous roles have included EMEA Marcom Leader at Honeywell Scanning (previously Metrologic), where he was responsible for a wide range of marketing communications, including customer messaging; publications manager for Retail Automation magazine; editor on Microsoft’s Windows in Retail publication, and show manager for the EPoS Congress.

Legend Exhibitions – passionate about the business of exhibitions but also focused on working closely with an industry to create and deliver events that are relevant to them.

For further information on Legend Exhibitions email: info@legendexhibitions.com