Sylvie Fourn Succeeds Bernard Leon as Director of POLLUTEC

Silvie Fourn, 40 years of age, has more than 10 years of experience in international trade shows, particularly in the food industry and distribution fields.

Graduating from the EDHEC in 1984, she began her career in the marketing department of the agricultural supplies group Claeys Luck International. In 1991, she joined SEPAIC (now Exposium, Vivendi group) as sales manager for IPA, the food industry show. Subsequently, she became Sales and Marketing Director (1993), and then Commercial Director and Deputy Director of the show (1995). She played an active part in its repositioning and international expansion (currently, 1,200 exhibitors and 50,000 visitors). In 1997, she was promoted to be the Director of IPA, as well as taking on responsibility for the publication of Equipmag (equipment and technologies for commerce and distribution) and the development of 2 new shows: Technomag and IPA Mercosur, in Argentina. In 1999 she was made a Divisional Director, with responsibility for 10 shows, and she was involved in the regrouping of the IPA and Emballage shows at Paris-Nord Villepinte. Finally, in January 2001, she became Director of Intermat, the building and civil engineering exhibition.

Sylvie Fourn has always been interested in the environment and has introduced areas dedicated to the treatment of waste and effluent in the food industry, the management of construction waste and low emission engines in the shows that she has run.

Bernard Léon, 60 years of age, was presented with the medal of the National Order of Merit for his lifetime of service to the environment by Dominique Bernard, Chairman of AFITE (French Association of Environment Engineers and Technicians) on 4th February, in the presence of members of the Organizing Committee of Pollutec.

Trained as a journalist, Bernard Léon joined the show organizer Sepfi-TechnoExpo (which would later be bought by Blenheim, Miller Freeman and then Reed Expositions) in 1966. Since 1971, the year of the creation of the Ministry of the Environment in France, he has been involved in the problems of decontamination, when he took over as sales manager for a water show. In 1976, he was involved in the launch of the Pollutec, of which he would become Director in 1986. From a show with one hundred exhibitors, primarily concerned with water technology, he turned Pollutec into one of the world's leading environment shows (2,000 exhibitors, 60,000 visitors in 2000), covering many fields (from waste to renewable sources of energy, taking in air treatment, analysis/measurement/control and, more recently, the management of industrial risks). Since 1999, as the Director of the Reed Expositions France Environment Division, Bernard Léon has also been responsible for the Ecomed Pollutec (Spain), Environnement et Cadre de Vie shows, and the magazine Environnement et Technique.