Installation can finally announce that the person ranked in first place in this year’s Pro AV Power 20 list, and receiving accolade of Pro AV Power 20 Most Influential Person of the Year 2020, is:
Mike Blackman, managing director, Integrated Systems Events
Michael Blackman is the managing director of Integrated Systems Events, the organiser of Integrated Systems Europe (ISE). An avid tech fan, he has been involved in technology publishing and events for more than 38 years and is now celebrating 17 years focused on the AV sector with ISE.
Working with a team of three, he launched ISE in a single exhibition hall in Geneva in 2004. Since then, Mike has consistently grown the event: floor space has increased thirty-fold, attendee numbers twenty-fold and exhibitor numbers eleven-fold. Today, ISE is the world’s largest exhibition and conference for professional commercial and residential audiovisual and electronic systems integration.
He has created many initiatives within ISE that have driven this growth. This includes a growing line-up of sector conferences – including Smart Building Conference, Control Rooms Summit and Digital Signage Summit – as well as hosted buyer programmes and business matchmaking tools. These have all helped to focus the market and facilitated access to potential new customers, accelerating industry growth.
In recent years he has increasingly focused on attracting AV end users from key market verticals to ISE. This has been a major contributor to raising the profile of the professional AV industry among the wider world of business and industry.
As ISE prepares for a new chapter in Barcelona from next year, Blackman has forged new relationships with the Catalonian government, with the Mayor of Barcelona and with many national and regional authorities that will bolster the continuing development of ISE and drive the development of the AV systems integration industry in southern Europe.
Quickfire Q&A
Who has had the greatest influence on your career?
Randy Lemke, former AVIXA CEO
Who did/do you look up to as a role model professionally?
Sandy Angus and Brian Montgomery, former chairmen of Andy Montgomery Ltd (my first job in the Exhibition Industry), and also past presidents of UFI (The Exhibition Industry association)
How do you measure success?
Success for me is the satisfaction achieved for our customers and stakeholders and overachieving on their expectations
What’s your biggest professional regret?
I met Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 and he tried to explain the Hypertext system they were developing at CERN. He wanted to launch it at a show that I had planned later that year. My answer was it sounded interesting but what could you do with it? (I wish I could have googled WWW then.)
If you were a teenager today, what profession would you go into?
I still think I would want to organise technology exhibitions. Despite current social distancing regulations people still want to meet and connect with their peers and do business face-to-face. Tech has the advantage that it is constantly evolving and remains exciting.
Power 20 ebook now available
And with that concludes our rankings countdown for the first ever Pro AV Power 20 list. You can read exclusive interviews with all inductees in the special edition ebook below.
The Power 20 celebrates the most influential individuals in our marketplace who are demonstrating leadership in areas such as innovation, market influence, commercial/business performance, contribution to good causes, education, professional development, diversity and inclusion, and general industry betterment.
Everyone at Installation and Future would like to congratulate all those nominated for this prestigious list, and for all those involved in helping to identify and recognise this marvelous roll call of influential industry leaders.
