Profile

Global success story

made in Coventry and Warwickshire

A business that was started in a pig shed in Warwickshire less than 15 years ago is now bringing home the bacon on a global scale.

Exhibition company CloserStill Media was established in Honiley by Phil Soar and Andy Center in 2009, launching the London Vet Show followed by the purchase of The Pharmacy Show as they looked to grow the business quickly.

It is now a circa £100m revenue company which has offices around the world, and despite the head office having moved to London, close to Olympia, it still has strong roots in the region where it was founded, with close to 40 people operating from its office at Coventry University’s TechnoCentre and events taking place just up the road at the NEC.

The Coventry office is home to the crucial finance function, as well as a team of salespeople, and is headed up by three women who play a key role in the wider success of the company.

Group Event Director Laura Shapiro, Group Financial Controller Vanessa Canale-Parola and Group Finance Director Sam Starr lead the growing team in the city.

Sam said: “The company began in a pig shed in Honiley not too far from here! It then moved offices and arrived here at the university in 2019.

“The founders identified two sectors that they wanted to run specialist exhibitions in – healthcare and tech – because they saw them as being as close to recessionproof as you can get.

“Coming through the pandemic as we have done, it appears they got that call right!”

The events sector, however, faced more turbulence than most as Covid-19 struck.

CloserStill was all set to open a show in Spain back in 2020 but had to cancel on the day as the country went into lockdown.

Across the world, live events and exhibitions were postponed or moth-balled – hitting the sector hard. But CloserStill has emerged stronger.

During the pandemic, the company quickly pivoted its events to digital, from newsletters and webinars to hybrid and virtual events.

Whilst CloserStill prides itself on the unique physical, face-to-face event experience, it was keen to ensure that businesses still provided the event communities with the unique, up-to-date content and lead-generating opportunities that stakeholders were used to.

The digital growth was such a success in increasing engagement with event audiences that the company has continued with digital activities to complement physical events. Across the business, the total virtual event attendance was over 49,000 and the team’s efforts have been honoured with four Digital Event Awards in the past two years.

It was also a time when the finance team was put to the test by the unprecedented nature of the pandemic and the fall-out from it.

“The finance department has played an even bigger part over the past couple of years because cash has been a big concern,” said Sam. “We hadn’t run any large-scale events since March 2020 until recently and, when we went into lockdown, we had to make a lot of financial decisions on how we were going to work with the banks and work with our backers.

“We had to look after the cash and there were a lot of events we were about to hold which were rolled into the following year. As it turned out, many of them were rolled over again because the restrictions lasted longer than expected.

“It is worth noting that we bought exhibitions in 2019 and haven’t been able to run those events until now. We spent £15 million on an acquisition and have only just this year been able to run one of those events.

“Around 80 to 85 per cent of our customers chose to roll over the bookings – in some cases for up to three years – which was important for us and that showed a huge amount of trust and has stood us in good stead.”

Instead of cutting back in the pandemic, CloserStill Media has continued with its ethos of investment.

In Coventry, for example, the sales team has grown from three to eight since January 2021 and there has been significant investment in the company’s global finance systems.

“We invest in our people in terms of our training and we invest in our shows through the right marketing and advertising but also top level speakers to make sure we’ve got the right content for our audience,” said Sam.

“We also invested in our finance systems over the last two years – we spent £2 million on a new ERP system which has kept us very busy with implementation, first in the UK and then rolled out across the globe.

“These investments have put us in a fantastic position to keep on growing.

“We come out of Covid with better systems, better infrastructure and better training, all providing a great base for growth.

“We also believe we have over delivered on expectations for customers and really developed our proposition and content for our shows and this has been demonstrated over the past few months as our rebooking rates for future shows are up compared to the 2019 position.”

Across the world, CloserStill – which has won 65 awards in the space of a decade - owns the IP for 86 exhibitions and events, and runs just about every aspect.

“We hire the space, sell the space, plan the content, facilitate building it and then getting the delegates there through all of the marketing,” said Sam.

Growth is both organic and through acquisition.

“As soon as we complete a show, we’re rebooking on-site for next year’s exhibition, growing the size of exhibitor stands, increasing the number of delegates, providing fantastic content to drive more delegates and, therefore, more exhibitors because they want the right level of networking and to get in front of the top-level buyers,” Sam added.

“That’s how we grow. The sales drive that comes from this company is second to none. I’ve never been in a company where the sales team has been so strong and everyone has such a huge amount of ownership over what they deliver. From a sales perspective, everyone has a target on their head – they know what that is, and they strive to get there and over-deliver.

“It’s a real team effort from all around the business – sales, operations, marketing and finance – to come to a show and celebrate that we’re a great team and that we’ve delivered a great event.

“When we get the feedback from the delegates and the exhibitors, it makes it all worthwhile.

“But we’re always thinking about the future – about next year – and where that growth is going to come from.”

Organic growth is something that runs through the company’s recruitment and progression policy too. Laura started as a sales manager and is now a group event director and this progression is reflected across the business.

Sam said: “We have a graduate recruitment scheme and a large telemarketing team and the majority of our staff come from those two pools of people. Whilst we do recruit senior talent where needed to support the growth of the business, we very much like to grow our own talent and develop the CloserStill ethos and values within the teams.

“For me, this business is about taking ownership, rolling up your sleeves and proper team working.

“We operate in different teams - you have a show team that will work on a show for a whole year and that might be one to five people, depending on the size of the event. You then have a wider team which is your marketing team, your operations team and your finance team, as well as data and admin.

“We are recruiting now for a range of roles and I know myself that this is a great company to be part of.”

And Sam, who lives in Stratford, says there is thrill in seeing CloserStill continue to grow.

“I joined in June 2016,” she said. “I started at KPMG with an audit background but I’ve done various roles in industry.

“My last role was with a big plc and that wasn’t my thing. Here, I knew I could make a difference and be part of the growth and that really excited me.

“It’s a company that’s got good margins and good cash generation. You can get really excited about the growth potential but going on-site and seeing exhibitions being created and delivered with the team delivering the value really makes it worthwhile.

“It’s a great success story for the region and not bad for a business that started in a pig shed!”

❛❛ We invest in our people in terms of our

training and we invest in our shows through the right marketing and advertising but also top level speakers to make sure we’ve got the right content

for our audience. ❜❜

About Sam Starr:

Born:

Oxford but grew up on the Isle of Cumbrae in Scotland before moving to Birmingham for University Live: Stratford-upon-Avon Married/Partner: Married Children: Two girls, aged 10 and 14 Hobbies: Horse riding – compete in local dressage competitions Favourite Book: His Dark Materials series Favourite Film: I don’t really have time to watch films (work, horses (6), dogs (2), cats (2), chickens (7) and children (2) plus a husband! but I guess my go-to film is anything from Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. I love a good musical and going to the theatre when I get the chance, my favourites include Les Misérables, We Will Rock you, Moulin Rouge and War Horse Last Holiday: Taking my horses and family to the New Forest has been our annual holiday for the last three or four years – we camp in the lorry and spend the week riding and cycling around enjoying the views and scenery Gadget: I’m so not a gadget person, however I couldn’t be without my iPhone. I don’t like not being on top of emails and knowing what’s going on. And now it is so easy to do so much on our phones…how did we cope without it!?