BOND Events Appoints Young Female Leaders to Top Positions, Celebrates 20 Years of Innovation

BOND Events, a portal specializing in architectural and design-oriented one-on-one meeting platforms, has announced that Alice Russell will be joining the company as the new Chief Executive Officer while Luciana Coates will assume the position of Chief Operating Officer. This leadership change, which can be considered as a major event in the Firm’s development on the occasion of its 20th anniversary, was introduced on September 5, 2024 in London.

Alice and Luciana’s appointments are significant especially when placed within the larger business context. At 38 and 36 years respectively, they are part of a very small and exclusive club of female leaders who are under 40 where currently only 7% of senior leaders are from this age group in the UK. In the corporate events market, this number decreases to only 5%. Their promotions help demonstrate that BOND is a company that supports diversity and is willing to promote it within the C-suite.

Over the years, Alice Russell has been acting as the EVP of BOND for the last seven years and has been a great help in the direction of the company. She has managed senior marketing positions in Marcus Evans, and Haymarket Business Media; her experience has greatly impacted the company’s sales. When asked about her new position, Alice, remarked: “Our mission statement is to be the world’s most loved, most profitable, one-to-one events company and I am excited to take BOND into what should be it most productive year to, primarily, grow our live events, and secondly, repeat the success of North Americas in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. ”

The current COO of BOND is Luciana Coates, who started working for the company in 2018 and who, before the promotion, served as the Head of Operations. Luciana brings past leadership experience from Gartner and IDM to develop BOND’s event experience to new heights, making the company synonymous with one-to-one events. Speaking on her appointment, Luciana mentioned, “At BOND Events, it has always been our mission to foster positive, memorable connections and achieve high ROI for clients We will strive to strengthen that tradition forward and to build a staff across all four continents, inclusive of awesome talents while diversifying BOND Events’ business and product portfolios.

Together with these appointments, Rob Norton, the former CEO, will be appointed as the CFO of the company. Rob, who has leadership experience at SPG Media and Datamonitor, has been instrumental in growing BOND Events into a major market force. I can see that his financial related skills will remain relevant to the growth of the firm.

Oliver Needs, a Blenheim and Tarsus veteran and BOND Events founder, will assume the position of Chairman. He will continue to lead the strategic management of the organisation whilst keeping BOND focused on its founding values as it enters the third decade of its existence.

This leadership transition occurs as BOND Events marks its twentieth anniversary of facilitating meetings of the world’s leading architects, designers and suppliers, at the highest level of one to one. Based in the USA and the UK, BOND holds eight annual forums throughout the US, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East and focuses on sectors including commercial, hospitality, high-end residential, multifamily residential, and interiors. Holding a total of 87 years of experience within the events segment, the full-time BOND staff is well-equipped to enforce the highest growth rate and continue with its dominance in the market.