CHICAGO — Paul Miller, CEO of the event organizer Questex, has led the company through record-breaking revenue and profit growth.
Trade Show Executive (TSE) spoke with Paul about his storied career and what he has learned on his path to the top.
ANDREW: How did you begin working in the events industry?
PAUL: I went to college to study media and I thought that I was going to be a sports commentator on TV. I ended up working in B2B media in the U.K. through a recruitment agency … I worked in media for the first ten years of my career until our company was acquired in 1999 — and that company had events.
ANDREW: What inspired your passion for events?
PAUL: What surprised me pleasantly about events is that you have the entire buyer’s journey in a three-day encapsulation: people are discovering new solutions and products and trying them out, they’re evaluating and, in some cases, buying the product depending on the event, and getting educated through conferences, content and networking.
I also saw all of these people who knew one another at these events and discovered this is more than just business — this is personal, it’s relationships. I was hooked after that.
ANDREW: Did you expect to become a CEO?
PAUL: I don’t think that when I started, I really knew what a CEO was, but it didn’t take long. I would say that probably five years into my career, I thought, “I want to do more and I think I can do more.”
I was curious about the whole C-level path very early on and my career took various wavering points along the way. In my case, it wasn’t straight upwards — it was all over the map — and then it happened.
ANDREW: What was your first management position and what did you learn from that role?
PAUL: In my second year of work out of college, they promoted me to Assistant Manager. I still had a manager, but I was now managing a team myself.
When you’re in a team and, all of a sudden, you’re promoted to manage that team, you have to deal with a lot of what I call human things — people thinking, “Well, why you and not me?” — particularly if there was more than one of you that went for the job.
The first thing that I learned was that you need regular, consistent communication, and if you think you’re communicating enough, you need to double it, because people are still not always hearing what you’re trying to communicate. In today’s world, where there’s a lot of different kinds of messages and noises, and a lot of people are remote, you have to work even harder at communication.
The second lesson that I learned very early on in my management career was to be authentic. People see through an act quite quickly and they don’t really want to follow you.
The last thing I learned as a manager is that it’s not one way: you’re learning as much from the people that you are managing as they’re learning from you.
Related. Questex Announces Three New Life Sciences Events for 2025
ANDREW: What were some pivotal milestones on your journey to becoming a leader?
PAUL: There were three pivotal points in my journey.
The first was my first true C-level promotion. I was running the digital portfolio of the group in the company that I was working at when digital was like what AI is today. Everybody was talking about it. I was living in Silicon Valley, and I actually thought, “Hey, I’m a digital bro. I’m one of the guys and I’m right here in the epicenter of the world.”
About a year later, my boss said, “Look, I want to promote you out of this role into an even bigger role, running the entire business.” Instead of feeling good about it, I actually thought, “Oh, I’m being dragged into the past.”
I remember him sitting me down and saying, “You have to have a wider aperture on your career. It’s not always about the most exciting subject … You have to start projecting yourself five years ahead, by which time digital will just be part of what we do. It won’t be the thing that everybody’s talking about.”
It took me a few days to get my head around that and then make that decision. It turned out to be the first time that my ego was in the way of my career. So, I took a much-bigger job, running hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and hundreds of people. I learned more in that next five years than I’d ever learned in the previous 10.
The next pivotal moment came about 10 years after that when I was asked to be CEO of a company within a company. I was offered that job because the company saw it as having challenges and it needed to change management.
I said yes without even thinking and I should have asked some questions: How bad is it? What is it that’s bad that is forcing you to make the change and offer the job to me?
It turned out that the particular job had a very toxic culture. The lesson there was that even if it’s “the big job” and everything you’ve looked for, make sure that you know what you’re stepping into.
The last pivotal point was when I was asked to run Questex. That time I asked a lot of questions … By then, I was almost 30 years into my career and that’s when I felt that I was truly ready for what I would call a real CEO position, where I don’t report to anybody.
ANDREW: What advice would you give a young professional who ends up in a toxic workplace?
PAUL: Get out. It’s not worth it. Now, when you go in at a more senior level, in some ways it’s your job to change that. Certainly, if you go in as the CEO, that’s your job.
ANDREW: What strategies were key to your success?
PAUL: I was always willing to work hard. If the office closed at 5:30 and people went down to the pub, I’d be there at 7:00 still doing work. I wanted to out-hustle my colleagues and my competitors. Nothing beats hard work.
Secondly, very early on … I learned that we need to know our customers. We need to be passionate about our customers.
I was at one of our events last week and I spent hours talking to our exhibitors and our attendees, asking, “What’s it like? What are you getting out of this? What could we do better? How do you feel about us? How’s the company? What’s our team like and, more importantly, what are you dealing with as a customer that we could help you with?”
I often find that events teams sit in the event office and they never go out there, but out there are all of your exhibitors, sponsors and attendees.
It’s a ready-made customer focus group right at your event. Take advantage of that … get out there.
ANDREW: What career advice would you give to a young professional?
PAUL: If I could go back and talk to my younger self, I’d say a few things.
Number one, you belong at the table. I came from a working-class background and I found myself early in my career at the table with wealthy, well-educated folks. I had imposter syndrome and I wish I could go back and tell myself “No, you’re here because you belong here.”
Secondly, don’t let your ego get too big. Yes, you belong, but you’re at the start of your career journey — you’re there to absorb, learn and be curious.
Thirdly, be a team player. Individual contributors have a place, but they tend not to have great career progression.
