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For general enquiries please email hello@exposunderland.com or telephone 0191 561 1222
City Hall, Plater Way, Sunderland SR1 3AA
Meet the Team
Sarah Gilley
Event Director, Expo Sunderland
Sarah is a seasoned event project director who spent her previous 12 years leading major not-for-profit events for the largest trade association in the global energy industry. Sarah gained 14 years’ commercial experience and temporary structures knowledge in exhibition contracting, based at the National Exhibition Centre before relocating to the North East.
Sarah brings with her a passion for sustainable design and the circular economy with ambitions to develop and establish an exhibition industry with the local community in Sunderland through her role as Event Director for Expo.
Clare Wood
Principal Event Manager & Event Producer
Clare previously worked at Beamish Hall as its Conference & Events Manager and has a vast amount of experience in organising live public events and managing all aspects of the venue’s event programme.
As the deputy lead for Expo, Clare is taking forward the skeleton outline, producing the programme and designating content for all Expo events to bring them to life.
Clare is responsible for exhibitors (including those taking over a home or garden) and delivering the requirements of all sponsors, fringe event organisers, trade partners, speakers and presenters.
Clair Cogdon
Sales & Marketing Manager
Clair is our lead on all event sales and marketing across the Expo programme, having spent 30+ years managing client portfolios and customer engagement at Sunderland AFC, a highly respected organisation which is central to the city.
Clair has a strong sense of product and service appreciation and can translate her passion of matching your products with the right Expo events and earmarking spaces for meaningful activations.
Please get in touch with Clair if you'd like to discuss partnering with Expo.
Additional Contacts
Andy von Bradsky
Non Executive Director, Expo Sunderland
Andy is our government policy and built environment expert and leads on content and agenda for our Delivering the Future City events.
Andy is an architect with over 40 years’ experience in the design and delivery of housing and regeneration. He is a Director of von Bradsky Enterprises, a company that provides strategic design advice to central and local Government, developers and landowners and their consultants.
He was former Head of Architecture at the UK Government’s Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (2016-2021) advising on design quality in the planning system, housing and estate regeneration programmes.
Prior to working for Government, he was Chairman of PRP, a large, multi-disciplinary award winning architectural practice specialising in placemaking, residential and mixed use development, sustainability and project management.
He has been Chair of the RIBA Housing Group, Chairman of the Housing Forum, a cross housing industry membership organisation, a member of the NHBC Foundation Expert Panel and trustee of Design South East, a design review agency. He has co-authored influential reports on standards and quality in housing developments.
John Nordon
Creative Director, igloo Regeneration
John is our urban design and regeneration expert and leads on creative content for the Expo homes & gardens and our Delivering the Future City events.
John is the creative director for igloo Regeneration where he applies design thinking to projects that goes beyond the traditional bricks and mortar approach, utilising co-creation and co-design to develop a holistic approach to regeneration. Working with the talented design teams and stakeholders, this approach unlocks opportunities with an unrivalled level of design quality across igloo schemes which in turn delivers sustainable and socially responsible outcomes.
John spent the first 15 years of his professional career in London as an architect, working in a variety of practices, including; founding the London studio of the Japanese practice Ushida Findlay, establishing his own practice IDE-A and becoming the Design Intelligence Leader for the Woods Bagot European Studio.
John was a founding rider, board member and trustee of Cycle to MIPIM, helping to raise over £4 million for charity, in particular the children’s charity Coram. He was a trustee of Coram’s Legal Centre from 2014 to 2017. He was an expert client for the UK Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2016. From 2021-24 he was a Design Council Expert on Housing.
Louise Bradford
Managing Director, Creo Comms
Louise handles press and PR for Expo so please contact her for media enquiries.
Your Future Expo Careers & Skills Cohort
If you would like to find out more about the advisory board, please get in touch hello@exposunderland.com
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Event suppliers and contractors
In brief, 45,000+ consumers, businesses and government professionals will be able to explore three compelling themes through a series of high profile, professional and large-scale events taking place from October 2023 and right through into 2026
Exhibitions will primarily be held at the Beacon of Light in Sunderland and conferences in City Hall and be a mixture of consumer shows and B2B/G conferences.
All event Invitation to Tenders (ITTs) will be issued via the new OPEN portal, both of which suppliers can register free of charge.
Do this NOW as only registered suppliers to the NEPO portal will be automatically notified of upcoming Expo Sunderland tender opportunities and only those registered suppliers to the new OPEN portal will be notified of events later in the year.
Click to register and/or update your details on both the new OPEN portal and the current NEPO portal: www.nepo.org
Once on the web page, click register, which is located at the top righthand side of the screen. A drop down menu will give you an option to register on either Open or NEPO, whilst some of the Expo Sunderland related opportunities will be on NEPO it is advised to register on both to ensure you don’t miss any relevant opportunities in the future.
If you are interested in finding out more about supplying goods and services to Expo events, please contact clare@exposunderland.com
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