Claire Puddifoot

With last year’s Technology for Marketing & Advertising exhibition seeing a 52 per cent increase on the year before, this year, Clare Puddifoot – the group marketing manager behind the event – has her work cut out for her to match this performance. “It’s a staggering result,” says Puddifoot, a petite woman, with poised confidence and modest frankness.

But she’s up for the challenge. For 2009’s TFM&A, Puddifoot, 32, hopes to see a 20 per cent increase on last year’s turnout of around 6900 visitors. “We don’t want to be over ambitious,” she laughs, adding that event organiser UBM has also taken the quality of experience for visitors into consideration.

Puddifoot has held her position as group marketing manager for 18 months now, although she has been with trade event specialists UBM (formerly CMP) for six-and-a-half years, during which, she says, she has held every single job title within the department. “You have to do the grunt work in order to understand the foundations and principles,” she notes with a smile.