Simon Gillespie, Founder, GillCon Ltd

Simon started his business career in the travel sector but combined his love of sport with a move to specialist sports travel and event management company, the Sportsworld Group, in 1992. Initially brought in to set up a VIP theatre programme to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard as part of Sportsworld’s exclusive contract with The Really Useful Group, he oversaw in excess of 15,000 hospitality packages during 1993-1994 and the company were the biggest food and beverage purchases of The Savoy and The Waldorf hotels that year.Simon moved on to head up the group’s sales and marketing operations, across both domestic and international events.

In 2005, Simon joined Cavendish Consultancy as managing director of their UK hospitality operations. In 2006 he won the rights to provide hospitality and special events at the much acclaimed Tutankhamun and The Golden Age of the Pharaohs Exhibition which was held at The O2 in London from 2007 to 2008.The venture, run in tandem with managing Cavendish, was a huge success, catering for over 12,000 guests during its run.

Since leaving Cavendish to set up his own business, GillCon Ltd, Simon has also been a non executive director with Quintessentially Events, part of the lifestyle management group, Quintessentially; as well as playing an integral part in creating Spectate Ltd, who backed by Dentsu Sports Europe, were shortlisted as bidders for the official hospitality rights to the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Currently Simon is continuing to work with Olympic related stakeholders in the run up to 2012, including sponsors, venues, right holders and local authorities. In addition he is a sales agent for ‘Eventz – powered by PerforMind’ a leading online event evaluation and measurement software.

With nearly 20 years in the events sector Simon has an extensive knowledge of the international events and sports travel markets, and a broad network of ‘stakeholder’ contacts from venues and rights holders to brands.