Interview with Ms Meherun Islam

Face2Face

Ms Meherun Islam
President & Managing Director
Conference & Exhibition Management Services Ltd (CEMS Global)

With its proactive faith in ethos ‘Everything is Possible’, Conference & Exhibition Management Services Ltd (CEMS Global) is headquartered in New York –USA and organizes over 25 exhibitions per annum on all important sectors of the trade and economy in South Asia including textile and garment, and has a commendable presence in the sub-continent. It handles everything that touches events, even social events. CEMS has its own operated offices – CEMS India, CEMS Bangladesh – Asia-Pacific, CEMS Pakistan and over 10 representative offices around the world, the Group has also lined up to commence its own operations in another 2 countries. Termed as `The Visionary', the Group’s President & Managing Director, Ms Meherun Islam is a graduate (Bachelor of Arts) from Dhaka University. She completed a course on Construction Management, Business Management and Computer conducted by Bangladesh Development Corporation. Has thirteen years experience in the field of Management, Marketing, Advertising, Public Relations and Media Consultancy. Ms Islam is a well-groomed, dynamic and pleasing personality. She is also a hard taskmaster. Besides having a sharp nose for business, she has developed herself as a computer designer and specialized in printing, and garment manufacturing & buying. Ms Islam heads the Creative, General Administration & Finance Departments. She is a Member of Dhaka Chamber of Commerce & Industry and an active member for three Committees (Public Relations, Women Entrepreneurship and Garments). In Face2Face exclusive interview, Ms Meherun Islam speaks on current state of trade fair industry worldwide.

Initiating the conversation, we would like to request you a brief on the historic episodes of your company and all those fairs/exhibitions that Cems organizes for textile and allied industry?

We commenced our Textile Garment Technology and Machinery Expo in Bangladesh way back in 1999 and now Textech is the leading and oldest exhibition of its kind in Bangladesh for the entire Textile & Apparel Industry of the country. As the exhibition was focused on the Textile & Apparel sector, we launched 2 concurrent exhibitions catering to the same sector, namely, `Dye+Chem Bangladesh’ and `Dhaka International Yarn & Fabric Show’. The strategy proved an immense success and we have launched `asia+TEX 2009 India’ – an exhibition on Textile Garment technology and machinery focusing on the South Asian Textile & Apparel sector in Mumbai, `Dye+Chem India 2009’, `Mumbai Int’l Yarn & Fabric Show 2009’, `Colombo Int’l Yarn & Fabric Show 2010’, `Textech Sri Lanka 2010’, `Dye+Chem Sri Lanka 2010’ and `Dye+Chem Asia 2010’ in Singapore.

We are also planning to held the `asia+TEX 2012’ in Singapore which will focus on the entire Textile & Apparel sector of South and South-East Asia.

Can you please provide us the closer picture of worldwide Trade Fair & Events business in select arena? What important trends do you see in the Trade Shows industry?

Speaking of trends, I do not see any new trends that are being developed by Exhibition Organizers. The same theme is being used in every market which is a wrong strategy. Perhaps, the Organizers should focus on the requirement of the market and then launch their exhibitions, an area where I don’t see much attention is being put. An exhibition is being made important whereas we work very differently and it is the market that we focus on and not the exhibition. If we make known the size and importance of the market, the companies would definitely participate in an exhibition. We identify the important sectors and then create a demand for that particular market and then launch an exhibition without concentrating more on the exhibition and in return, the exhibition automatically becomes a success.

Published on: 13/07/2009

DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.

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