PennWell is a private, 102-year-old company with international offices in London, UK and Moscow, Russia as well as in the US in Tulsa, Oklahoma (these are the headquarters); Houston, Texas; Nashua, New Hampshire; and Fair Lawn, New Jersey. Evans will be based in Cape Town, South Africa and will report through the UK office to Africa events director Nigel Blackaby and Glenn Ensor, director of events for PennWell’s International Power Group.

Evans has a background in sponsorship and exhibition sales and 10 years' experience in African power events, which he will bring to PennWell’s inaugural POWER-GEN Africa conference and exhibition.

POWER-GEN Africa and the co-located Renewable Energy World Africa event will be held in Johannesburg on 6 to 8 November 2012 at the Sandton Convention Centre. The show, which is modelled on PennWell’s internationally successful POWER-GEN events, is touted to quickly become the top conference and exhibition for the power generation sector in Africa.

Blackaby comments, “Andrew has strong connections within African power utilities and a keen understanding of the workings of both the power and the events sectors. Coupled with his strengths in business development and passion for delivering customers needs, this will stand him in good stead as he assumes responsibility for sales and development in Africa and prepares to represent 21 PennWell’s international power shows conducted across six continents. We are delighted to welcome Andrew to the Group.”

Evans will also be sales director for PennWell’s plan launch of a new transmission and distribution show for Africa, called DistribuTECH Africa, based on the successful DistribuTECH conference and exhibition in the US held annually since 1991 and currently recognised as the world’s leading transmission and distribution event. DistribuTECH Africa will take place in Johannesburg from 30 October to 1 November.