Margit Herberth new director for upcoming Heimtextil in Germany

Margit Herberth will be responsible for the home textiles segment of Heimtextil as director from September 1, 2023, and, together with Bettina Bar, will form the new dual leadership of the leading trade fair for home and contract textiles. Herberth, previously director of marketing consumer goods/multimedia and data at Messe Frankfurt, succeeds Meike Kern, who is leaving the company of her own volition after 22 years to take on a new professional challenge.

Herberth complements Bar, who has been responsible for the home textiles segment since September 2022, Messe Frankfurt said in a press release.

“We are delighted to have won Margit Herberth, a proven sales strategist with a strong global sales as well as marketing background, as director Heimtextil,” said Olaf Schmidt, vice president, textiles and textile technologies, Messe Frankfurt.

Margit Herberth, former director of marketing consumer goods/multimedia and data at Messe Frankfurt, is set to become the director of the home textiles segment of Heimtextil from September 1, 2023.
She will work alongside Bettina Bar in a new dual leadership role.
Herberth will focus on expanding the textile sustainability content strategy.

Herberth has more than 10 years of sales expertise as senior sales manager for Messe Frankfurt’s international consumer goods fairs Beautyworld, Hair & Beauty, and Christmasworld. Since 2018, as director for marketing communications, she has managed all marketing activities for the Paperworld, Christmasworld, and Creativeworld brands and was responsible for the design of global brand campaigns in the consumer goods sector, for example for Beautyworld.

Most recently, as head of multimedia and data, she decisively drove strategic performance marketing, including the implementation of targeted smart data campaigns, as well as the further development of audio and video formats for consumer goods trade shows including Ambiente.

Herberth will in future be responsible for the household textiles segment and thus for the world’s largest brand and private label exhibitor range of bedding, bed linen, bathroom textiles, table and kitchen linen, mattresses, sleep systems, home accessories, blankets, pillows, and textile processing machinery. Another important component is the further expansion of the textile sustainability content strategy as well as an even stronger internationalisation of the Heimtextil Conference Sleep & More, added the release.

Herberth replaced Kern as long-time director, who is leaving the company for a new professional challenge. “In addition to the significant expansion of national as well as global sales structures, Meike Kern has also played a trend-setting role in the further development of Heimtextil into a content platform and global condensate of environmentally friendly textile innovations—not least in 2011 with the initiation of the first green formats. We wish her all the best for her new professional station,” added Schmidt.

In her 15 years as director, Kern built strategic partnerships with customers on a global level, expanded sales channels, and increased the market presence of exhibitors from core markets. In 2019, she also played a leading role in shaping the restructuring of Heimtextil and achieved an even clearer and more efficient visitor orientation at the trade fair with the targeted bundling and placement of the product range. In addition to several sustainable formats, she also established the Heimtextil Conference Sleep & More as a knowledge platform for the bedding trade as well as the industry and helped young startups to gain worldwide visibility at Heimtextil as part of New & Next.Heimtextil.

Heimtextil will take place in Frankfurt am Main, Germany from January 9–12, 2024.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (NB)