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Mary Pat Heftman speaks at the closing session of Convening Leaders 2017 in Austin. Heftman has been named vice chairman of Winsight Exhibitions. (Jacob Slaton)
Following the success of the 100th National Restaurant Association (NRA) Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show last month, Winsight LLC has promoted Mary Pat Heftman to vice chairman, Winsight Exhibitions.
Winsight made the announcement June 14. Heftman, a former chair of PCMA’s Board of Directors, most recently served as president, Restaurant Show Group at Winsight, The information services company in the foodservice industry acquired the restaurant show in November 2018. She will assume her new role June 17.
Heftman continues to be responsible for key strategic matters with the restaurant show, including maintaining Winsight’s relationship with the NRA, various trade groups, key exhibitors, the City of Chicago, and McCormick Place. As vice chairman her duties will expand to all of Winsight’s on-site events, expansion opportunities for the restaurant show, and corporate development projects.
“Immediately after the show was acquired, the Winsight team was reaching out to offer support. Even with only a few months together the collaboration showed in how great our content was this year and how excited attendees were to have access to so much data and expertise,” Heftman said in a press release. “It’s this experience that has me excited about what’s to come at Winsight and eager to be part of it in a broader and more strategic role.”
Winsight also announced that Tom Cindric has been hired as president of Winsight Exhibitions. Cindric will assume day-to-day management and P&L responsibility for the restaurant show. Cindric joins Winsight from Informa, where he served as SVP of Informa Global Exhibitions, U.S. Commercial Events and several International Commercial Events.
The 100th anniversary restaurant show, which took place May 18-21 at McCormick Place, experienced record exhibit space sales for the fifth year in a row. The show welcomed 42,557 restaurant operators, retail foodservice professionals, equipment dealers, food distributors, and many others — a 3-percent increase over 2018. Including exhibitors, registration totaled 65,526, exceeding last year’s number.
The show will expand again when it returns May 16-19, 2020, into a fourth exhibit hall at McCormick Place.