Chris Peacock is the new chair of event industry charity Meeting Needs. A 27-year industry veteran with the agency, Chris is a director and co-founder of Conference Care, formed in 1995 to provide a range of conference, event and digital services to a mostlycorporate client base.

He follows in the footsteps of Jason Wilcock, who stepped down this week after nearly three years of steering the charity through the Covid pandemic and maintaining fund-raising and project finance at a consistently high level.

Chris is responsible for the sales, finance and procurement areas of the company and also launched their carbon consultancy product in October 2021, which provides detailed measurement, reduction and offset of carbon produced by events.

He is a past chairman of the HBAA in 2012, serving as a board member of the association for more than eight years. He has served the charity for the past two years as a board member.

Peacock said, ““As a Charity Partner of Meeting Needs for several years, I’ve always been full of admiration for the amazing work they do – and this has only grown since joining the Board in 2020. Meeting Needs shows what we as the events industry can achieve through collaboration, even through the hardest of times. I’m looking forward to continuing the inspiring work that’s been done, to continue to learn, and to look at new ways we can fundraise, support beneficiaries and remain our industries charity of choice.”

Peacock was officially announced as the new chair at the Meeting Needs Showcase Event at The Dilly on 3rd May. The event brought together charity partners, supporters and beneficiaries for an in-person gathering for the first time since 2019. Attendees heard from Sparkle Foundation and Clowns without Borders about the impactful work they are doing in communities in Malawi and Ukraine. The event was also the finale of the Meeting Needs auction, raising more than £8,000 for future projects.

Wilcock will remain on the board of Meeting Needs as well as his day job as chairman of event management agency Worldspan. He said “It has been an absolute privilege to work on these projects with a fantastic team of volunteers. In fact it has given me a valuable sense of perspective.”