Messe Düsseldorf has appointed Wolfram N. Diener to take over from Werner M. Dornscheidt (55) as the president and chief executive officer
Dornscheidt will retire at the end of June 2020 after almost 17 years at the helm of the Düsseldorf trade fair company. Diener will take up his post on July 1, 2020. In another management change, Erhard Wienkamp will become managing director Operative Trade Fair Business, replacing Hans Werner Reinhard, who left the company in September.
Pointing to their industry expertise, broad management experience and international trade fair success, Dornscheidt believes this creates the best conditions for further developing Messe Düsseldorf’s product portfolio at home and abroad with the customer mind and for strengthening the Düsseldorf location.In the new role, He says, “Markets are shifting, the world is becoming more international, more digital and more complex. With their many years of trade fair experience worldwide, Wolfram N. Diener and Erhard Wienkamp are the ideal torchbearers to lead Messe Düsseldorf into the future. They stand for both renewal and continuity.”
Diener would like to focus on the international trade fair portfolio, the optimisation of the exhibition centre at the home base, on corporate responsibility and digital transformation. He says, “The Düsseldorf trade fair organisers have an unbeatable brand profile that can be made even more successful in the future driven by internationalisation and digitisation. I am delighted at the confidence shown in me to carry out this vision responsibly with the help of an outstanding team.”
He will continue to hold the responsibility for the operational projects he has managed since joining the company in 2018. A graduate of business administration, Diener was responsible for the Asian trade fair operations of Messe Frankfurt from the end of the 1990s as managing director. In 2001, he joined the management at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre. After various management positions with Asian trade fair and congress companies, he successfully worked as a member of the management board at UBM Asia in Hong Kong until 2018.
Erhard Wienkamp, an economics graduate, joined Messe Düsseldorf in 1993 after working in the Foreign Trade Department of the Federation of German and Foreign Trade in Bonn and the German-Argentinian Chamber of Commerce in Buenos Aires. As project director at Messe Düsseldorf, he was initially responsible for the leading international trade fairs K and interpack, among others, later heading up the foreign division. He says, “For more than 25 years I have been a driving force behind the development of Messe Düsseldorf. I am delighted to be able to use my national and international trade fair experience as a managing director Operative Trade Fair Business for the company.”
Lord Mayor Thomas Geisel, chairman of the Supervisory Board of Messe Düsseldorf, says, “Messe Düsseldorf will have a streamlined, powerful and above all expert management team that will give the company the necessary agility to face the future in these times of digitalisation, global challenges and growing responsibility.”
