Stillwell Partners Has Sold Advertising Week to Emerald Holding, Inc.

Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips’ client, Stillwell Partners has sold Advertising Week, a premier global event and thought leadership platform focused on marketing, media, technology, and culture, to Emerald Holding, Inc., an operator of business-to-business events.

Founded in 2004 in New York, AW’s award-winning global event franchise includes: AWNewYork (NYC), AWEurope (London); AWAsia (Tokyo); AWLATAM (Mexico City); AWAPAC (Sydney).

In addition to live and virtual events, the Company’s year-round global content platform (AWLearn) also contains best-in-class e-learning from some of the world’s leading practitioners, and original audio, video, and editorial content (AW360).

Commenting on the acquisition, Reed Phillips, CEO at Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips said, “The owners of Advertising Week, Matt Scheckner and Lance Pillersdorf, were adamant about finding the best partner to help them expand their business. They did so with flying colors by aligning with Emerald Holding, Inc., one of the world’s premier events companies.”

“It’s been a pleasure to witness Advertising Week’s growth over the years,” said John Kaiser, Partner at Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips. “We’re delighted that they now have the right partner, Emerald, to assist the team in building upon Advertising Week’s preeminent position in events and thought leadership globally.”

The acquisition of AW signifies another step forward in Emerald’s 365-customer engagement strategy of delivering connected, best-in-class experiences through seamlessly integrating in-person events, content and commerce. Through this acquisition, Emerald will build on its prominent position in the B2B marketing sector where it successfully serves the marketing technology community via its Demand Gen Report media platform and B2B Marketing Exchange in-person event series.

For Advertising Week, the acquisition provides access to complementary customers within Emerald’s businesses – including small and medium-sized businesses across varied sectors and its well-established retail and design portfolios – and greater resources and scale to accelerate Advertising Week’s expansion and growth.

Hervé Sedky, Emerald’s President and CEO, said, “This exciting potential to join forces with Advertising Week represents an important next step in the implementation of our strategic initiatives and underscores our commitment to evolve and grow our customers’ businesses 365 days a year combining creativity and innovation with the Emerald platform.” Since the reopening of most municipalities in June 2021 through Q2 2022 to date, Emerald, under Sedky’s leadership, has successfully staged 117 in-person trade shows, conferences and other events, serving approximately 328,000 attendees and 17,000 exhibiting companies.

Emerald CFO David Doft, who has led the conversations for Emerald added, “We have long admired Advertising Week’s best in class reputation for being ahead of the curve serving the influential advertising, marketing, media and technology sectors which I have experienced personally as both an attendee and sponsor over the course of my career. Its signature blend of thought leadership on the business of the business with highly curated experiential events will diversify our collective product offerings, enhance our growth profile and enable us to deliver even greater value to our clients and customers over the long term.”

Matt Scheckner, Stillwell Partners Co-Founder and Advertising Week Chairman said, “Fueling growth is at the heart of this partnership with Emerald as we seek to unlock the future opportunities put in place to date. Moving beyond organic growth by integrating with a larger organization with additional resources is the right next step in our evolution as a business for today, and for tomorrow. We chose Emerald because it clearly values the unique aspects of our brand, have committed to our leadership team led by Lance and Ruth, bring an intuitive knowledge of our industry, and are passionate about supporting growth.”

Lance Pillersdorf, Stillwell Partners Co-Founder and Advertising Week CEO added, “After completing our first phase of global expansion pre-pandemic, we are now focused on our next phase of growth. The momentum of change in the global marketing industry through the impact of rapid cultural and technological evolution has provided us with multiple growth opportunities. Accelerating these growth opportunities around content, education, further global expansion and our proprietary technology is at the heart of this partnership with Emerald. Herve, David and the Emerald team are the perfect growth partners to help us realize these plans.”

About Emerald:

Emerald’s talented and experienced team grows our customers’ businesses 365 days a year through connections, content, and commerce. We expand connections that drive new business opportunities, product discovery, and relationships with over 140 annual events, matchmaking, and lead-gen services. We create content to ensure that our customers are on the cutting edge of their industries and are continually developing their skills.  And we power commerce through efficient year-round buying and selling. We do all this by seamlessly integrating in-person and digital platforms and channels.  Emerald is immersed in the industries we serve and committed to supporting the communities in which we operate.  As true partners, we create experiences that inspire, amaze, and deliver breakthrough results. For more: http//www.emeraldx.com/

About Advertising Week:

Advertising Week (AW) is the premier global event and thought leadership platform focused on marketing, media, technology, and culture. Founded in 2004 in New York, AW’s award-winning global event franchise includes: AWNewYork (NYC), AWEurope (London); AWAsia (Tokyo); AWLATAM (Mexico City); AWAPAC (Sydney); and AWAfrica (Johannesburg, coming 2023). In addition to live and virtual events, the year-round global content platform also contains best-in-class e-learning from the world’s leading practitioners (AWLearn); original audio, video, and editorial content (AW360) and proprietary event technology (AWLabs). For more: https://advertisingweek.com