The award recognises Sherif’s role in developing a data-driven transport solution for CardioAlex 2025, one of the largest cardiovascular conferences in the Middle East and Africa.
Supported by IMEX, the award honours individuals and teams introducing operational innovation within the global meetings and events industry.
The award was presented by Sissi Lignou, President of IAPCO, during the IMEX Gala Dinner in Frankfurt.
The recognition follows the implementation of the CardioAlex Smart Shuttle System, a transport management platform designed to optimise delegate movement between hotels and conference venues.
CardioAlex 2025 took place at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt, welcoming more than 6,200 cardiology professionals over three days of scientific sessions, workshops, live cases and international faculty exchange.
According to ICOM Group, delegate transportation had previously represented a recurring operational and sustainability challenge due to the use of fixed hotel allocations, dedicated buses and estimated demand forecasting.
Under Sherif’s leadership, the company formed a cross-functional team covering web development, logistics and operations to redesign the transport model using real-time data, dynamic routing and integrated fleet management.
The resulting Smart Shuttle System introduced a round-robin operational model, replacing static bus allocations with a continuously circulating fleet serving multiple hotels and the conference venue at scheduled intervals.
The system integrated a GPS-enabled delegate application with real-time arrival information, a driver application for route management and a centralised operations dashboard providing live tracking and passenger visibility.
According to the organisers, the 2025 edition of CardioAlex operated across 18 hotels and 1,600 rooms while reducing total vehicle deployment to 47 buses during the three-day conference.
This represented a 47.8% reduction in fleet size compared with 2023 and a 44% reduction compared with 2024.
The revised operational model also reduced fuel consumption, emissions and transport-related costs, according to ICOM Group.
“Sherif’s work is a powerful example of innovation in action. Operational excellence, sustainability and delegate experience should not be viewed as competing priorities, but as interconnected outcomes,” said Sissi Lignou.
“By turning a complex, recurring logistics challenge into a smart, scalable solution, Sherif and the ICOM Group team have demonstrated how intelligent operational design can unlock better outcomes for conferences, communities and the environment. This is exactly the kind of leadership IAPCO is proud to recognise.”
Mohamed Sherif has 19 years of experience in international congress management and operational strategy and currently serves as Operations Director at ICOM Group.
Based in Egypt, ICOM Group has more than 28 years of experience managing medical and scientific conferences across the Middle East and Africa and has been involved in CardioAlex since the event’s launch.
Tags: ICOM Group Sissi Lignou, IAPCO
