Clarion Events, Inc. - Clarion's North American Headquarters, produces 50 events across 12 sectors including trade, enthusiast events. Clarion Events North America which is the U.S. division of Clarion Events, UK, and backed by The Blackstone Group has become one of the fastest growing event companies in the United States with aggressive growth through acquisition, launch and innovation. Clarion acquired PennWell in early 2018, bringing 4 Tradeshow 200 events into the U.S. portfolio and super-charging the already rapid growth. Clarion Events, Inc. has offices in Shelton, CT; Tulsa, OK; Tacoma, WA, and Fairlawn, NJ.
The company is led by CEO Greg Topalian, who famously founded New York Comic Con, and in 2014 founded Leftfield Media after a stellar 17 year career at Reed Exhibitions, where he also created the ReedPop division. Clarion Events, Inc. bought LeftField Media in 2016 and in 2017 named Greg as CEO of Clarion Events North America.
Greg is surrounded by a team of high performing industry veterans including Courtney Muller, former Reed SVP who came to Urban in 2014, brought Urban together with Clarion Events and LeftField Media and who today oversees corporate development and strategy. The balance of the senior team include the best and brightest from Clarion Events North America and many industry executives who have found an exciting new challenge in working for an organization that is nimble, entrepreneurial, rapidly expanding, has formed a strong culture of excellence and is building to become one of the biggest players in the U.S. events industry.
Clarion Events approach to the North American business is focused on ensuring our events meet the customers’ needs today and in the future and all our event leaders have strong ties to the communities they serve. Today, you will see Greg Topalian carrying boxes and managing lines on-site. Behind the scenes he is calling agents to book guests, or working with his teams to help sell exhibitors. No job is too large or too small for any member of the Clarion North American Team.
In the past few years, Clarion Events North America acquired multiple businesses including: InsureTECH Connect; MAU; Coffee Fest (3 regional coffee tradeshows); The Affiliate Summits (Marketing Conferences in NY, LA and London); Rose City Comic Con (part of LeftField Media), HAuNTcon (co-located with Halloween & Party Expo), and The National Grocers Show (owned in partnership with the National Grocer’s Association). In early 2018 Clarion Events, Inc acquired PennWell and with it their stellar line up of Tradeshow 200 industry leading events and media. The growth for Clarion Events North America has redefined their portfolio entering new and adjacent markets as well as created new opportunities within many of Clarion’s existing brands.
The Clarion Events North American portfolio today spans 12 product sectors, including ones they share with Clarion Events Globally including Fashion, Gaming, Retail-Trade and now Power and Energy. Clarion Events Globally also produces a multitude of consumer events, industry conference and trade events in defense & security, life sciences and technology across 50 countries. The Clarion Events Global portfolio information can be found at https://clarionevents.com
Our people
Our people play a key role in our product success. We work hard to ensure that all of our employees have an equal opportunity to develop and progress their careers in a supportive and inclusive environment. We offer ongoing training and development, encourage employees to take advantage of internal opportunities and reward team members who champions ideas. We look to support employees in building and achieving their career plans. Training varies from online courses to internal learning to mentoring programs, external coaching and a by invitation program for our next in line leaders, called Leaders of Tomorrow. We also have a performance appraisal process that happens throughout the year to support our employees in developing their careers with us and always focus on being open, honest and transparent in our communications.
The unique culture and identity of Clarion comes from our people and our values of Passion, Care, Imagination and Trust. We support and hire committed and passionate people, and invest in developing and growing their careers in a positive, open environment of mutual respect.
LEARN MORE ABOUT OPEN OPPORTUNITIES TO JOIN OUR TEAM HERE
We believe that diversity, inclusion, equality, and belonging (DEIB) are fundamental to making Clarion Events a successful and vibrant organization. Clarion aims to put tolerance and inclusion at the heart of everything that we do and we need to work hard to attract, develop and retain a diverse workforce that reflects the diverse communities and markets in which we operate. We have zero tolerance for discrimination of any kind.
LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR DEIB INITIATIVES HERE