Karlsruhe, 05/09/2008. Effective October 1, 2008, Prof. Stefan Luppold, USI's Director of Marketing, Europe, will assume the position of Dean at the Merkur University of Applied Sciences in Karlsruhe, Germany. 

Prof. Luppold has been working in the MICE industry for 25 years, mainly in the IT and events sector. In 2002, he joined the growing USI Europe team and focused on expanding the market leadership of USI's Event Business Management Software (EBMS) in the United Kingdom, Benelux, and Scandinavia.

In 2006, Prof. Luppold was awarded the Chair of Trade Fair, Convention and Event Management at Merkur University of Applied Sciences in Karlsruhe, and delegated some of his duties at USI to other members of the growing USI Europe team.

Reflecting on his career with USI, Prof. Luppold stated, "From the very beginning, USI supported my work on publications in a variety of books and magazines and as a lecturer at universities, trade shows and association events."

Working concurrently with the leading global event software company and the university gave Prof. Luppold an extraordinarily broad perspective of the events industry, leading to the appointment now at hand.

Thorsten Kolbinger, General Manager of USI Europe, outlined USI's future plans: "While we will miss his day-to-day participation on the USI team, we will continue to work very closely with Prof. Luppold and several academic institutions around the world on a wide range of industry education programs through speaking engagements, sponsorships, and scholarships."

Dieter Ungerboeck, USI President, added "The collaboration with Prof. Luppold and Merkur University further deepens our long-standing commitment to promoting professional excellence in the events industry. We applaud Prof. Luppold for his accomplishments in education, thank him for his commitment to USI, and wish him the best of luck in this step in his career."

ABOUT USI - USI develops and implements the Event Business Management System (EBMS), a comprehensive and fully integrated enterprise software application for the events industry.  The 28-plus modules of EBMS are available in five different languages and are utilized by the world's leading venues, conference managers, show organizers, and destinations in over 25 countries.  USI clients include stadiums of 2 of the last 4 Super Bowls, 2 of the last 4 summer Olympics, Fortune 500 Companies, and the two largest exhibition organizers in the world. 

USI supports its client base from its regional offices in Karlsruhe, Germany; Lyon, France; Brisbane, Australia; Guangzhou, China; and Hong Kong and world headquarters in St. Louis, MO, USA.