AVIXA hands the CEO job to Informa tech events chief Marco Pardi

AVIXA, the Audiovisual and Integrated Experience Association, announced on November 4 that Marco Pardi will become its CEO on January 1, 2027. He succeeds David Labuskes, CTS, RCDD, who retires on December 31 after 14 years running the Reston, Virginia-based association. Pardi comes from Informa, the international events, digital media and information services provider, where he was President of the Tech Events portfolio.

AVIXA's announcement lists the brands Pardi stewarded at Informa: Data Center World, The AI Summit, Network X, HIMSS Global Conference, Channel Partners Expo, IWCE, Service & Support World Expo and Contact Center Expo. His team of more than 200 people spanned North America, Europe and Asia and covered live and on-demand events, training and digital marketing services for the information technology and healthcare industries.

For the AV managers, integrators and manufacturers who rely on AVIXA for certification, market data and show-floor time, the useful question is what an events operator at the top means for the parts of the association they actually use. The evidence points one way. The board picked someone whose career matches where AVIXA's reach already sits, and whose shows sit on the IT side of the room.

A reach counted in attendees and learners

AVIXA describes itself mostly through audience figures. Its announcement gives a set of numbers that read like an events and media business, with membership never mentioned.

Most of AVIXA's footprint runs through shows, newsletters and courses, which is the business Pardi has spent more than 25 years running. The online learning numbers point the same way: AVIXA says 30,000 unique individuals use its learning platforms, and more than half of them now hold one or more of the CTS, CTS-I and CTS-D certifications.

The membership numbers come from elsewhere. Installation magazine reports that AVIXA represents more than 3,000 enterprise member companies and over 20,000 individual industry professionals across 80 countries. Set beside the 175,000-plus people who attend its shows, events and webinars, the individual membership is a small fraction of the event audience. That gap helps explain why a career events executive reads as a natural fit for the job.

Two flagship brands also sit within the events business. Installation reports that AVIXA produces InfoComm trade shows around the world and co-owns the Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) exhibition. According to TSNN, the InfoComm 2026 exhibit hall at the Las Vegas Convention Center opened on June 17, with hundreds of exhibitors spanning AV, broadcast, collaboration, digital signage, AI and integrated experiences. Because AI and collaboration appear on that list alongside signage and broadcast, the show floor already overlaps with the ground covered by events like The AI Summit, which Pardi ran.

Network shows on an AV résumé

The more telling detail is which shows Pardi ran. Data Center World, Network X and Channel Partners Expo draw IT infrastructure and channel audiences. AVIXA has spent years building programs for exactly that crossover, and Pardi's own statement framed the association as having fully embraced convergence with IT while keeping its core identity.

The catalog built under Labuskes supports that view. According to AVIXA's announcement, he introduced the AVIXA TV video platform, the Pro AV Business Index, which comes out monthly, and the ANP (Audiovisual Network Professional) accreditation. His most recent addition is a training course called Broadcast AV: Glass to Glass. It targets AV staff whose jobs now overlap with enterprise broadcasting, media asset management and live event production.

Labuskes's wider record shows how long the association has been moving in this direction. He oversaw the rebranding from InfoComm International to AVIXA, which Installation dates to 2017, and the rebuilding of core association activities after the COVID-19 pandemic. InfoComm now survives as the name of the trade shows, while the association's own name points at integrated experiences rather than a single event.

In organizations where meeting rooms, signage and video run on the corporate network and report to IT, these are the AVIXA offerings that matter most. A CEO who ran Network X and Data Center World suggests that track keeps getting attention, and could mean more of AVIXA's events and courses aimed at the IT buyer who now signs off on AV. That last part is an inference. Nothing in the announcement commits to it.

Chosen by the companies that exhibit

The search took 12 months and drew applications from more than 100 candidates worldwide, according to AVIXA. A CEO Search Committee chaired by board vice chair Mradul Sharma of 3CDN Workplace Tech ran it, with Korn Ferry supporting. The other members were board chair Tobias Lang of LANG AG, Jatan Shah of QSC, John Bailey of AVI-SPL, Christine Schyvinck of Shure, former board chair Cathryn Lai of Interblock and former AVIXA CFO Greg Feehan.

Several members held association governance posts as well as day jobs. Shah, president of QSC, chairs AVIXA's Leadership Search Committee, and Bailey, senior VP of technology and innovation at AVI-SPL, is the board's secretary-treasurer. Schyvinck is president, CEO and chairman of Shure. Lang came up through the volunteer pipeline himself: AV Magazine reported in November 2020 that the Leadership Search Committee appointed him to AVIXA's 2021 board, the same cycle in which members elected Shah.

That pipeline is part of what Labuskes leaves behind. AVIXA credits him with modernizing the association's governance and leadership search capabilities, so the process that picked his successor is one he helped rebuild.

For AV companies, a committee drawn from industry executives could signal what the industry expects from its next CEO. Lang said the committee valued Pardi's experience leading large, diverse teams, his record of revenue growth based on value, his background in technology-driven industries and his international reach. That suggests revenue growth will be part of how the board judges the new CEO.

Lang also gave a second reason. He said the committee was impressed "above all" by Pardi's "sheer enthusiasm for the role and for the Association." In Lang's account, Pardi sees the job as more than building a business. He sees it as a chance to speak for the industry and to argue for the results it produces for the wider world. Taken together with the revenue line, this suggests the board wants one person who can run the business and also speak for the industry.

The strongest case against reading too much into this is the credentials. Labuskes carries the CTS and RCDD designations; Pardi holds an economics degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and built his career in B2B events and community-building. For an enterprise buyer, AVIXA's standards and certifications may matter more than any show, and the announcement doesn't address how that work changes. Pardi's Informa role did include training, which is the closest overlap on his résumé.

Pardi's own description goes beyond the show floor. He said AVIXA is the source the industry trusts for data, training, standards, networking and growth opportunities, which puts standards and training in the same list as the networking his career rests on. Buyers who care most about certification can read that as a sign he treats the technical work as part of the franchise he is taking over, and not as a side business.

The New Year's Day handover

TSNN covered Pardi's LinkedIn farewell and supplied more detail on his time at Informa. He came to the company when Informa acquired UBM, stayed eight years, and his most recent boss was Andrew Mullins. In the post, Pardi said he would remain at Informa through the end of the year and would take up his next role, as CEO of AVIXA, once the calendar turns to 2027.

On paper, then, the handover happens overnight: Labuskes leaves on December 31 and Pardi starts the following morning. Pardi said his task is to keep growing the AV industry worldwide and to extend the community's influence, at a moment marked by tremendous technological change and opportunity.

If convergence programming like Glass to Glass spreads across AVIXA's show calendar and course catalog under Pardi, the IT-shows reading holds. If the 2027 agenda looks like 2026, the hire was mostly about running the events business well, and for exhibitors that's a fine outcome too.