The Edinburgh International Conference Centre’s long-standing CEO, Marshall Dallas, is to step down from his role during the first half of next year.  The decision was intimated to the EICC board earlier this week.   Marshall Dallas took up the CEO role at one of the world’s top conference centres in October 2014, with the EICC reporting its strongest year of revenue and profits in 2023.

Marshall Dallas said: “Leading the EICC for the last decade has been the highlight of my career.  And there were so many highlights along the way, not least getting to work with such an incredible team across the business and partners across the city.  The venue was loss-making when I took over the reins, we were able to rapidly turn that around with an absolute dedication to being one of the best and most sustainable conference centres on the planet, which translated to holding some of the world’s leading events while creating year-on-year increases to economic impact for Edinburgh.”

Commenting on Marshall Dallas’s resignation, Councillor Lezley Marion Cameron, EICC Board Chair, said: “On behalf of all current and past EICC Board members who have worked closely with Marshall and the incredible EICC team during these past ten years, I thank Marshall for his hard work, commitment and energy, which have been integral to the success which the EICC has achieved.”

Over the last ten years, the EICC has hosted marquee conferences like TEDGlobal, along with hundreds of other UK and international association conferences, hosted President Obama and Michelle Obama, Hollywood stars like Leo DiCaprio, George Clooney, and Brad Pitt, and the Edinburgh Festival every August.  During the pandemic in 2021, the EICC partnered with NHS Lothian to run Edinburgh’s largest vaccination centre.

Lezley Marion Cameron added: “The EICC has faced and successfully overcome many challenges under Marshall’s decade long tenure as our Chief Executive.  These EICC successes including becoming a regular Fringe venue, transforming into Edinburgh’s main vaccination centre during the Covid pandemic, taking temporary custodianship of the Edinburgh Convention Bureau following the demise of Marketing Edinburgh, introducing the Exchange Initiative to secure a pipeline of interdisciplinary conferences, and achieving and retaining Gold standard from Green Tourism.”

Marshall Dallas added: “The global hospitality industry was decimated by Covid, we were one of the first major venues to close our doors in March 2020, pivoting to online events.  That was an incredibly tough time for the team, when we were used to hosting tens of thousands of people in the building every year, and how we got through that period and then managed to rebound is something I will always have great pride in.”

Lezley Marion Cameron said: “The EICC has made a strong post-Covid recovery and continues to compete successfully with national and international venues to attract world-leading conferences to Edinburgh.  It is Scotland’s premier venue for business events.  This year, the EICC will host over 170 events, over 90,000 delegates, with delegate numbers up by almost 25 per cent compared to the previous year, equating to around £75 million of economic impact for the city.”

Marshall Dallas said: “Our overall vision, to create an environment which inspires ideas that change the world, helped to guide us through the good and the tough times.  My hope now is that the future stewardship of the EICC will continue to have the best interests of the venue, our people, and the city at its heart.  The value of business tourism to Edinburgh and Scotland is too important, so we must continue to invest in it.”

In February, the EICC reported record revenue of £12.8 million and record profit of £2.6 million for 2023.