CloserStill Media Acquires Majority Stake in The eLearning Guild

(Santa Rosa, CA& London, UK—October 15, 2018) CLOSERSTILL MEDIA, the London-basedexhibition and conference organizer, has acquired a majority stake in FocuszoneMedia, Inc., operating as The eLearning Guild, for an undisclosedsum. 

The eLearningGuild has a 40,000+ membership community of learning and developmentprofessionals in the United States and around the world. The Guildoperates major conferences and exhibitions, including DevLearn (Las Vegas, Nevada), LearningSolutions (Orlando, Florida),and Realities 360 (San Jose, California), conducts research, andhas a number of digital publications and online events. 

CloserStillruns the world’s leading workplace learning event brand, LearningTechnologies, with three market leading annual events in London, Berlin(with Online Educa) and Paris, a global digital community, and theindustry’s leading awards program for corporate learning and developmentprofessionals. The London event in February is Europe’s largest annualexhibition and conference for the workplace learning sector, attracting morethan 8,000 attendees and over 200 exhibitors.

“This a veryexciting moment for the Guild. Our vision has always been ‘Together we arebetter,’ and this partnership with CloserStill empowers the Guild to connect toa broader global community in new and exciting ways. We’ll be able to bringmore international perspectives into the conversations we host and highlightsolutions from all around the globe that our community can learn from. Connectingwith the CloserStill network will enable the Guild to provide even more supportto help our members grow in their professions and support each other in ourwork,” said David Kelly, executive vice president of the Guild. 

Commenting onthe acquisition, CloserStill’s Learning Group managing director, Mark Penton,said: “We are delighted to welcome The eLearning Guildand their impressive event portfolio to our growing global network and areincredibly excited by the huge opportunities this will create. And mostimportantly, we look forward to enhancing the collaboration between our familyof learning brands and their learning communities around the world.”

The Guild’snext event is DevLearn 2018 (October 24 – 26), which takesplace at The Mirage in Las Vegas, with over 3,500 delegates and 150 exhibitorsexpected.

The Guild willcontinue to operate from its California base in Santa Rosa with the existingmanagement team led by David Holcombe and David Kelly.

Formore information

To find out more, please contact:

Mark Penton—CloserStill Media Learning Group. Tel: +44(0) 1730 817601. Email: [email protected]

David Kelly—The eLearning Guild (Focuszone Media).Tel: +1.707.387.1889. Email: [email protected]

About CloserStill Media

CloserStillMedia (CS) is one of the world’s fastest-growing exhibition businesses, runningbest-of-class events in the technology and healthcare sectors. Over the lastsix years it has averaged over 40 percent revenue growth each year. CS has turnoverof almost £57 million and has a team of 220, with offices in London, Paris, NewYork, Berlin, Singapore, and Hong Kong. CS has featured in the Sunday Times 2018 top 100 Best Places toWork, ranked in the top 100 in the last three Sunday Times International Track listings of Britain’s companieswith the fastest growing international sales, and in 2017 was listed in the Financial Times FT1000 Index as thefastest-growing exhibition organizer and one of the fastest-growing companiesof any kind in Europe. Voted by the Association Exhibition Organisers membersas the Most Respected Company in the Exhibition Industry, they are also winnersof over 30 major industry awards, including Best Business Exhibition (seventimes), Best Marketing (eight times), Best Sales (four times), and Best Launchor Brand extension (five times) in the last eight years.