Following several years of negligible membership growth amid increasing corporate mergers and meetings outsourcing, the incoming president of the Association of Insurance and Financial Services Conference Planners intends to launch several initiatives to not only aggressively recruit new members, but also allow the association's current members to share in knowledge and information to help justify their positions and prove their worth to their companies.
John Touchette, Boston-based general director of meeting management for John Hancock Financial Services, will begin his one-year term as president of ICPA—which in 2003 changed its name from Insurance Conference Planners Association, but still uses its old acronym—at the association's annual meeting Nov. 14-18 in Maui, Hawaii. He will succeed Debbie Boschee, Minneapolis-based director of conference and meeting services for Prudential Financial
(Meetings Today, Oct. 20, 2003).The conference will mark the fourth anniversary of ICPA's then-controversial decision to allow meeting professionals from financial companies, like Touchette, to join the association. "The membership then was evolving into financial services companies, and our members were no longer just insurance companies as the insurance industry evolved," Touchette said. "With this in mind, we felt it important to embrace the financial services segment of the meetings industry so we could expand our membership to enhance the networking and education opportunities for current members as well as expand opportunities for new members."
At first glance, it would appear Touchette is breaking new ground by being the first ICPA president from a financial services company, but he said that is not true. "Over one-third of our membership represents companies that now are considered financial services companies, and less than 10 percent of this segment are new members that came in as part of opening the membership," he said. "I am not the first president from a financial services company. I am the first whose company incorporates financial services in its name, but many of our recent presidents, including Boschee, represent companies that are now financial services companies. The names of the companies just have not been changed to reflect this."
While ICPA "continues to maintain a strong membership base," membership levels for the past few years generally have remained between 450 to 500 despite the decision to accept financial services planners, Touchette said, "during a time when consolidation of insurance companies was very prevalent. We are not enjoying the steady growth we experienced in the 1990s. For the past three years, although not declining, our membership growth has remained flat."
In an effort to recruit new members, ICPA is working with "our hospitality partners in major cities to identify potential members in the financial services arena," Touchette said. "Our hotel partners have relationships with many financial services conference planners who would make great additions to our association, bringing us new perspectives."
New York hoteliers recently piloted the program with "tremendous success," he said, and plans are underway for receptions to be held in Boston, Chicago and Dallas "to be more aggressive in our communication to and recruitment of potential members."
The Maui conference will be the association's first since the Association of Insurance and Financial Services Conference Planners earlier this year laid off its Vancouver, B.C.-based internal association management team and outsourced that responsibility to Chicago-based association management firm SmithBucklin Corp.
"We have been extremely pleased with our decision to hire a professional association management company to manage ICPA," Touchette said. "This change has given us exposure to other associations' best practices, right at our fingertips. As with any change that affects long-term, loyal employees, the decision was extremely difficult and one that was taken very seriously. In the end, the board made a decision that will make a positive impact on the long-term health and stability of the association. We needed to move the association to a more professional level that can provide expanded member benefits, educational offerings, and more resources," he added.
Touchette sees "the passion" of ICPA members as one of the association's greatest assets. "We plan to embrace that passion by creating more volunteer opportunities for them, utilizing their experience and relationships in various committees. We want to involve them more with recruitment and mentoring. We also see a great opportunity to expand our educational offerings, taking advantage of new technologies such as Webconferencing," he said.
"We want to provide resources as our members are asked to justify their existence to avoid outsourcing," Touchette said. "We are in a position of collecting and sharing information, which will help our members quantify the value they bring to their organizations."