Around The Group | Menewsletter

Managing Director appointments

The Company is pleased to announce at the start of 2026 the appointment of Ubed Mohammad and Azlee Shah as Managing Directors.

Managing Director, Market strategy

Azlee is entering his 17th year with the company and currently oversees a global team of over 50 staff, supporting a range of products, based across the KL and CT offices. These teams cover a range of different product lines providing a variety of strategic marketing and sales support initiatives. Recently he has also started working with Ollie Stoop on developing a new Curation ADE team in KL. Azlee’s contribution to the development of a world class research function and the evolution of that function, utilising AI tools and client profiling to create ever increasing opportunities for the group / clients from our data, has combined with a strong team building ethic to create a sustainable and ever improving department. His past success and new challenges with Curation are the background to his appointment to MD level.

Managing Director, Global talent acquisition & development

Ubed has been with the company for three years and over that time he has grown in his role having a major impact on the company’s commitment to best-in-class coaching, learning and quality for our newest hires and long-term company members alike. His insight and that of his team in transferring best practice across the company is and will continue to reap benefits for everyone. In addition, Ubed has recently taken over responsibility for our global talent acquisition function thereby expanding his department to 20+ team members. His contribution to the company’s growth and focus on excellence as well as the expanded role have led to his appointment as MD.

Marcus Evans AI lab

The Development team is proud to announce the launch of the Marcus Evans AI Lab. For over 40 years, Marcus Evans has supported leaders worldwide in making smarter, more informed decisions. With the AI Lab, our ambition is to harness the power of AI to bring greater structure, reasoning, and clarity to business insights.

Building this foundation has taken months of dedicated work, reflecting the complexity and multiple layers involved in developing meaningful AI solutions. We are extremely excited about what we have accomplished so far and look forward to sharing a series of videos over the coming months that will showcase the Lab’s key features and capabilities.

Shraddha Shetty-Richter

Global Head of Digital Strategy and Digital Business Development | London

Global Talent Acquisition & Development updates

Kuala Lumpur business visit

Ubed Mohammad, Keerthi Raj Cherukuri, and Anurag Mishra visited the Kuala Lumpur office for strategic engagements focused on cross-functional collaboration and reviews with the Chairman. The discussions provided valuable exposure to global teams and resulted in impactful conversations that have shaped way for stronger Global TA and L&Q initiatives.

Mumbai office visit

Nipunika Adiraju, L&Q Specialist for Global Content, Client Experience and Conferences Sales, visited the Mumbai office to collaborate with Ellie Brooks, Senior Content Director, for a range of Learning initiatives and discussions. This enabled wider engagement with Sales teams in the Mumbai office. Nipunika is looking forward to planning trips in the future to further collaborate with Sales Leaders as well as in-person in the Mumbai office.

ME Tool Knowledge Bank

We have now launched the ME Tool Knowledge Bank on LMS, a dedicated hub to support self-learning and help teams navigate our everyday technologies. This initiative looks to strengthen tool adoption and build greater confidence in using key platforms across Marcus Evans.

Team expansion
Our L&Q and TA team continues to grow in line with our expanding responsibilities across multiple divisions. This growth strengthens our ability to support key stakeholders and deliver greater impact across the business.

Ubed Mohammad
Managing Director, Global Talent Acquisition & Development | Hyderabad

Linguarama

We were delighted to deliver our Core Speak: English for leadership programme in Jakarta recently - a two-day course that brought together six senior participants from leading Indonesian banking, insurance, and healthcare organisations. As a flagship offering within our Linguarama APAC Core Speak series, the course focused on the language of effective leadership, meetings, and negotiations, with an emphasis on practical application and real-world relevance.

Feedback included comments such as, “The training was really impactful with useful content and intensive practice”, and “The content was all relevant to my role - I liked how Tom focused more on practice than theory; very effective!” It was a fantastic return to Jakarta and an encouraging sign of continued momentum for our Core Speak programmes across APAC.

Jessica Liebenberg

Linguarama Group Communications | Dusseldorf

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Online events

Our online event division is thriving — with the year just getting started, we already have 107 online events scheduled. Performance remains strong, reflected in repeat business, new testimonials, and clients joining us through recommendations. Looking ahead, we’re refining processes and scaling additional product development, including new digital assets for clients such as white papers, short-form video, and enhanced follow-up services. With these initiatives underway, this year is shaping up to be an exciting one for our division.

Svetlana Pantechis

Head of Online Events | Cyprus

Updates from the North America summits team

2025 was a very successful year for our North American Summits Division and no better way to end it than with nine individual summits across November-December. The teams were on the road travelling around North America including Chicago, Los Angeles, Fort Lauderdale, and Palm Beach.

Casino nights, Havana Night, NFL Night were a few of the themes chosen to entertain our attendees.

The holiday spirit was very present at our December events with ugly Christmas sweater contests and festive atmosphere all around!

Maria Zografou

Managing Director, Client Experience Summits North America | Limassol

Updates from the APAC summits team

The APAC team is gearing up for an exciting year ahead, starting with the 20th edition of the Australian CIO Summit and CMO Summit, held back-to-back at the end of this month, followed by the CFO Summit and HR Summit just two weeks later in mid-March. All events will take place at the beautiful InterContinental Sydney Double Bay. With an impressive lineup of high-profile speakers and attendees, the team is ready to kick off the year and deliver a series of highly successful summits.

There’s much more to come, and we’ll be sharing further highlights in the May newsletter.

Susanne Kirchhuebel

Event Director APAC Summits | Nicosia

Operations team

Updates from the EMEA summits team

This period has been marked by steady progress across the organisation, with teams advancing key priorities and turning plans into action. From local initiatives to cross-regional collaboration, the focus has been on execution, learning and measurable impact. Together, these efforts highlight how momentum is being built day by day, laying strong foundations for the months ahead.

Christina Lignos

Event Director, EMEA & APAC Summits | Nicosia

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Montreal, Laval & West Island

As part of the holiday celebrations for 2025, the Montreal, Laval, and West Island offices recognized outstanding contributions across divisions during our annual awards presentation. The awards highlighted the hard work, dedication, and achievements demonstrated throughout the year.

Congratulations to this year’s award recipients:

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#1 Overall Sales

#1 Sales Rep

#2 Sales Rep

#3 Sales Rep

SP Rookie of the Year

SP Most Improved

SP Best On-Site Performance

Tom Reid

Sam Houston

Matthew Starr

Sanjay Sharm

May Raad

Kapil Tata

Jessica Pandya

Curation Awards

SP Awards

Raquel Henry

Habib Kawar

Yasmeen El-Najjar

Raquel Henry

Yasmeen El-Najjar

Tobe Udechukwu

Aly Olama

Tobe Udechukwu

Kenny Ibrahim

Yasmeen El-Najjar

Pascal Boghossian

Sergio Bertarelli

Michael Fournier

Juliette Silva

DA Awards

#1 DA Salesperson of the Year

#2 DA Salesperson of the Year

#3 DA Salesperson of the Year

#1 CNA Performer

#2 CNA Performer

#3 CNA Performer

DA Best On-Site Performance

DA Rising Star

DA Rookie of the Year

DA Legacy Leader Award

Best Coach & Player

Legacy Leader Award

Best AI Lead Researcher

Rookie of the Year

The awards presentation was a meaningful way to recognize excellence across teams and celebrate the collective efforts that contributed to a successful year.

Alet Odal

Office Manager | Montreal

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Tokyo

With heartfelt gratitude, the Tokyo team celebrated Rika Nikko and Michinaga Ito for their incredible journeys with Marcus Evans —12 years and eight years of dedication, passion, and commitment. Their contributions have shaped who we are today, and much of our growth is thanks to their hard work and heart. We’re always rooting for you both and wishing you nothing but success and happiness in all your future endeavours.

Ray Rosaura

Videographer/Editor | Tokyo

Conference production update, London & Mumbai

We closed the year on a high note, delivering a series of successful conferences from our London and Mumbai offices across Europe and North America. November saw our Fraud and Financial Crime event in Frankfurt, which set the tone for a busy December with events in London, New York, and Chicago. Each received outstanding feedback from clients, reflecting not only the dedication of the production team but also the collaborative effort of sales, marketing, sponsorship, and operations.

Our continued focus on securing high-quality speakers has been a key factor in maintaining this positive feedback, and we will carry this into 2026. Congratulations to all producers involved in these events, and thank you to the wider team for your hard work.

In November, I visited our Mumbai office, joined by Nipunika Adiraju from the Hyderabad office, to run training sessions with the production team and welcome new team members and I am looking forward to continuing to see their skills develop further. Towards the end of the year, we have started up the topic generation programme with producers across London and Mumbai who have progressed into senior roles within the team. As more producers join this training programme, we look forward to expanding our event portfolio and developing new series as the team continue to grow their skills over the coming months.

Finally, in December we held a pre-Christmas lunch in London, giving the team a chance to connect and enjoy the festive season together. It was particularly valuable for newer staff to get to know the wider team and for everyone to celebrate a busy and successful year.

Ellie Brooks

Senior Content Director, Conferences | London

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Years of service at Marcus Evans

Congratulations to everyone who reached a major milestone since the last newsletter!

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Name

Igea Rendina

Paola Piccinini

Helga Demmer

Marika Rauschenbach

Mechthild Müller

Amit Mark Moiz

Gert Posdzich

Meng Kian Ng

Sachin Gurav

Susanne Kirchhuebel

Alan Holloway

Fatin Hidayah Mat Darus

Liangqin Gan

Rachel Briscoe

Wan Amirul Farhan Mohamad Rosdi

Robert Block

Sandra De Smit

Shaakierah Philander

Yuvaneshvar Shri Ram Ram

Office

Rome

Milan

Cologne

Leipzig

Stuttgart

Mumbai

Berlin

Singapore

Mumbai

Nicosia

Hamburg

Kuala Lumpur

London

Kuala Lumpur

Chicago

Barcelona

Cape Town

Kuala Lumpur

Years

Years of service milestones reached since the last newsletter up until 13/2/2026

​Managing Director appointments

Marcus Evans AI lab

Global Talent Acquisition & Development updates

Linguarama

Online events

Updates from the APAC summits team

Updates from the EMEA summits team

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Montreal, Laval & West Island

Curation Awards

SP Awards

DA Awards

Tokyo

Conference production update, London & Mumbai

Years of service at Marcus Evans

Name

Office

Years

Managing Director appointments