The organiser of Vision, Messe Stuttgart, has had a new Managing Director and Spokesman of the Board of Management in Stefan Lohnert since 1 February 2020. He replaces Ulrich Kromer, who is retiring after 19 years at the helm of the company. The new management duo wants to further expand the trade fair centre, and a new hall is also part of the planning.

Lohnert has been working for Messe Stuttgart since 2006. His colleague Roland Bleinroth, Managing Director, also joined the company in the same year and took up his current position. Lohnert joined the company as Head of Guest Events and ICS International Congress Center Stuttgart. He remains responsible for this area. However, the trade fair sector for business & education is a new addition. The Protocol Department, Legal & Corporate Affairs, Stuttgart Messe Service & Sales, Event Management Construction and Facility Management, Personnel & Organisation and the Works Council are also assigned to him.

New exhibition hall and further internationalisation

The new management duo wants to push ahead with internationalisation and build logistics areas for the service providers on the exhibition grounds. Additional parking spaces on the campus and an additional hall with a congress area are also planned. Talks are also underway to widen the L1192 highway, the most important feeder road. Sustainability is also an important issue for the management: "We are on our way to becoming the first climate-neutral trade fair location in Germany," says Lohnert.

Messe Stuttgart is one of the leading German trade fair companies with almost 180 million euros in sales and 34 million euros in earnings in 2018, the year in which Vision, among others, took place. The exhibition centre has a hall area of 120,000 m², over 40,000 m² of open space and 33 rooms in the adjacent ICS International Congress Center Stuttgart with up to 1.36 million visitors. Messe Stuttgart is present for its customers in 56 countries with three subsidiaries, 16 foreign representatives and numerous sales partners.