Looking back: Don Gilpin’s reign over CEDIA
After 18 years at the top, Don Gilpin is leaving CEDIA. He spoke to Paul Skelton about his journey from tradeshow executive to executive director.
After 18 years serving the industry, CEDIA executive director Don Gilpin has announced that he is calling it a day, stepping down as leader of the home technology industry association by the end of 2015.
Don has been with CEDIA since 1998 and became executive director and chief operating officer of the association in 2006.
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“When I came to CEDIA, 17 years ago as the director of CEDIA Expo, I could not have imagined the incredible run I would have and the wonderful people I would meet over the years,” he says.
“Last summer, I took about three or four months to do some soul searching and thought about the next chapter in my life. Opportunities started to arise and I thought that maybe it was time for me to look at doing something new.
“Shortly after last year’s Expo, I let the Board of Directors know that I wasn’t going to ask for a renewal of my contract and that I wanted to help them to look for a new CEO.”
Under Don’s watchful eye, CEDIA Expo has grown to be a top 100 tradeshow in North America. The association’s footprint also expanded into numerous countries outside of the US, and he successfully guided CEDIA financially through the housing market collapse and subsequent industry challenges during 2008-11.
Now, membership has recovered and maintains record-breaking new member growth.
“When I started with CEDIA, we were very much ‘drinking from a fire hydrant’. There was a lot of activity and it was so easy to do business; money and members were flooding our way and we were managing that influx of money and customers the best we could.
“They were really fat, happy days.”
Don came to CEDIA through the management group, Raybourn Group, where he was working as the executive director of an interior design association. He heard about an opening in the tradeshow department of CEDIA and the rest is history.
“I came to Raybourn with a lot of tradeshow experience; I had previously built a tradeshow from scratch and I liked the tradeshow industry,” he says.
“So, in 1998 I started in the tradeshow department of CEDIA, which at the time consisted of me and one other person.
“Together, we were able to build the CEDIA Expo from being the mid-level show that it was into a member of the Tradeshow Week Top 200 list. We actually broke the top 100 and even made it into the top 70s at one point. That was an incredibly proud moment.”
Don remembers that one of the driving forces behind the incredible growth of the CEDIA Expo was the then emerging high definition (HD) TV technology.
“When I first came into the CEDIA world, it was just at the zenith of HD TV.
“At that year’s Expo, we had a dark, cooled display room in which manufacturers to show off some huge, behemoth HD television sets. Some of them were retailing for $35,000-$40,000! Now those same units a half-a-centimetre thick and probably costs $800.
But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing for CEDIA.
“When the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) hit, our US and UK tradeshows, membership and education took a 25-35% hit. Everything was in a downward spiral,” he says.
“But, since 2012 we have turned it around. Last year we had a record setting number of new members and the tradeshow attendance and exhibitors is growing back, too. Last year we had over 100 new exhibitors at the show.
“Since the recession, the association is a lot smarter about our overheads and what we spend. And we built a proactive sales department. We weren’t simply order takers anymore; we had to go out and sell CEDIA – the membership, the expo, etc, and that has been our saving grace.”
For the Australasian market, Don says it’s important to remain positive in the face of adversity.
“When the US and UK were at the bottom of the recession we were just bleeding money and members, and we were doing little more than trying to stop that bleeding. Australia’s market, though, was booming.
“You had a very healthy economy. But when we started to come out of our trough, that’s when Australia seemed to begin dipping.
“If I can give any encouragement to the readers of Connected Home, organically the economy is going to come back. Economies are cyclical, they always go up and down; this one just happened to be a really bad trough.”
The global alignment of CEDIA has been the subject of much scuttlebutt in the Asia Pacific region, but Don assures that the Indianapolis office hasn’t forgotten about local integrators or suppliers.
“We’re still in the process of global realignment, but it’s going well so far,” he says.
“We’re now going to apply the same sales tactics that helped us in the US to the Australian market. We will have a proactive sales group that will talk about the benefits of belonging to CEDIA and promote our education offering.
“We’re not just sitting on our hands and hoping things get better. We’re going to be increasingly proactive in the A/NZ market.”
Unfortunately, Don won’t be around to fully experience the fruits of his labour in the Australian and New Zealand markets. While he is yet to set a date for his departure, he will undoubtedly be working hard, promoting and advocating for CEDIA members around the world until his last day with the association.
“We have a solid management team at CEDIA, and I am confident in their ability to continue CEDIA’s success story,” he says.
“I’m really happy with my decision and I’m at peace with it. And I’m getting more and more excited about the next chapter of my life each day.
“When I first started in association management, a colleague of mine told me executive directors typically have a lifespan of five to seven years. Anything longer than that and they start to stink like a rotten fish. The fact that I’ve stayed on with CEDIA for 18 years is astonishing. I’m thrilled with the time I’ve had here. It’s just time to do something different.”
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