An interview with Rodney Cox, IGU’s new Events Director By Lee Gale
In 1992, Australian radio-friendly soft-rockers
Welcome to London, Rodney. As an
Crowded House found chart success in six
Aussie, do you have British ancestry?
countries singing “You always take the weather
I’ve got Scottish in my veins. My mother was a
with you” (from the single “Weather With
McCulloch. In 1984, I took my mother to
You”). That’s certainly the case for fellow
Bannockburn to trace the family tree. I went
countryman Rodney Cox, IGU’s new Events
into a gents and there was a man with a kilt
Director. Looking through the glass doors from
on. I thought, “Ah, my first Scotsman!” I
the London base of the renowned events and
started talking to him and discovered he lived
training producer CWC Group, a rare snow
three miles from me in Sydney. He’d never put
flurry is giving the River Thames a Disney-esque
a kilt on before in his life.
touch of winter. “It was the same in Paris yesterday,” Cox announces. “I’m taking the
Are you constantly travelling?
snow wherever I go.”
I spend 100-120 days a year out of Australia
Since starting his role with IGU in August
x Rodney Cox (right), showing Jérôme Ferrier, then IGU President (centre), Dave McCurdy, AGA President and CEO (left) and Didier Coulomb, IIR Director (rear) around the LNG 17 exhibition floor in Houston in 2013.
and I do the equivalent of seven or eight round-
2016, Cox has wasted little time in clocking up
the-world trips every year. But I seldom go to
air miles. He’s been liaising with committee
one place. It’s normally a multi-destination trip.
members all over the world ahead of IGU’s
Being based in Sydney, everything is long haul.
busy schedule of conferences, exhibitions and
If I’m going to London and I can do business in
executive get-togethers. Residing in Sydney, Cox
Doha, Shanghai or Tokyo, you’ll turn a problem
doesn’t have a single client in his own time
into an opportunity. In my previous job with
zone but, as he reveals, there is no substitute
ETF [Exhibitions & Trade Fairs], our clients were
for the face-to-face approach.
everywhere in the world. In fact, in 20-odd years, I’ve never had a client in my time zone. You have to be flexible. What are you working on? There’s the 27th World Gas Conference in the US next year. The second biggest event in the IGU portfolio is the International Conference & Exhibition on Liquefied Natural Gas, the LNG series, which was, until Perth in 2016, numbered by chapters. So Perth was LNG 18. But there was confusion in the marketplace that it was different than the date so the name’s been changed. For China, it’ll be LNG 2019 because it happens to be in 2019 and then it’ll be LNG 2022. There’s also the IGRC [International Gas Union Research Conference]
38 A n i n t e r v i e w w i t h R o d n e y C o x , I G U ’ s n e w E v e n t s D i r e c t o r
