He was not only the first chairman of FKM from 1966 until 1974, but was also its initiator: Carl Ferdinand von der Heyde had a decisive influence on the first decade of FKM. As the managing director of the Cologne exhibition company of many years’ standing, he was well aware that competition between organisers was also producing negative side-effects and industry expected something to change. After all, in the advertising sector the IVW (German Bureau of Circulation), which was dominated by the advertising industry, had already been in existence since 1949.
The model for which von der Heyde strove was, however, different. The idea was for the exhibition organisers themselves to decide whether they should take part and which standards should apply. And it worked: right at the start he brought together inter alia four of the largest German organisers of exhibitions, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hanover and Cologne, with Munich and Stuttgart following shortly afterwards in 1967. The foundations for FKM’s success had been laid.
