When the world's largest real estate meeting gets underway Tuesday in the French Riviera, Nicolas Kozubek will see his labor of the past 12 months in action, with scheduling meetings, speeches and networking events.

Kozubek is serving for a third year as director of the annual Mipim conference in Cannes, France, with this year's event running through Friday. He said he spent the past couple of weeks sweating the small stuff to ensure a smooth show for the more than 20,000 attendees, or delegates, who will include both real estate professionals and prime ministers from around the world.

He's not sleeping soundly as the show gets set to kick off. But the main reason, Kozubek said, is that he has a 1-year-old baby at home.

"There are so many little details to sort the last days and weeks that it's basically jumping from one little thing to another," Kozubek said in an interview. "A lot of this has to do with customer experience to ensure that those who have confirmed they will participate can prepare their show the best way possible and just figuring out how we're going to welcome, let's say, the most important figures that are planned to participate to the show."

He added that "from ministers to top CEOs, these VIPs that like to attend the show, we need to welcome them the right way. So basically, lots of organizational stuff regarding welcoming people the best way possible."

Kozubek has worked for the show producer, now known as RX France, for more than five years. He previously ran Mipim's show focused on property technology companies that was held in New York.

This week in Cannes, Kozubek will watch his team's planning in action as political and company leaders, including former Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin and Newmark CEO Barry Gosin, discuss geopolitical issues and the built environment.

“We are convinced she [Marin] moved the needle in the right directions in terms of geopolitics and in terms of environmental approach in the European Union,” Kozubek said “Not only that. We felt like, as someone belonging to sort of a new generation of decision makers, it was important to hear her and hear her thoughts about future expectations for the real estate industry, but from a global perspective, too."

Delegates at the show will represent more than 90 countries, and Kozubek is working to increase attendance from Asia. Having real estate tycoon Srettha Thavisin, who serves as prime minister of Thailand and as its finance minister, deliver a speech should help, Kozubek said.

“He will ensure that Thailand and Asia are on the map at Mipim,” Kozubek said. “Mipim is a really global show, but especially with the COVID times, the components of the participants changed a bit. And now we see kind of a stronger appetite from the Asian markets at Mipim.”

Kozubek joined the company that organizes Mipim after a career in commercial property that included working for Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, or URW, the large owner of shopping malls.

At URW, he worked on the innovation team and helped build models for and launch new ventures. Kozubek, who grew up in Grasse, France, about a half-hour drive from the site of the Mipim show, has also worked in operations at Sweden's Mall of Scandinavia, one of the largest malls in the Nordics, and as a shopping center director.

Of his years at URW, he said: "I did that because I was fond of marketing, and there was some marketing opportunities there."

His time at the retail real estate giant sparked an interest in how real estate affected people's lives. After he took a yearlong professional break and traveled, he started his new career as an events director.

"I felt like real estate and the built environment had plenty of very interesting things to do with the way people lived and the way people will live in the future," Kozubek said. "So I felt like this industry had something more exciting to show."