Meeting professionals can expect new, individualized online tools and resources for career development, the start of a massive research project and summit on influencing senior management, and other developments this year from Meeting Professionals International, according the association's newly appointed board chairwoman.
Christine Duffy, president and CEO of Maritz Travel Co., began her one-year term as MPI chairwoman on July 1. She said it will be a busy 12 months for the association, as years of work on career development resources bear fruit and a new research director plans to launch a project investigating the perceptions and expectations of senior-level executives on meetings management.
"We're ready," Duffy said. "There's been a lot of work that has been put in up front to this point in time. This is the launch where our members will really begin to see the fruits of the labor that we've been putting in over the last three years."
Duffy said as Corporate America begins to take note of return on investment, and scrutiny of spending increases, the corporate meetings management industry is ready to elevate itself to the next step of professionalism.
"There is a demand from businesses and senior management to better understand how we manage meetings and events across the enterprise, in the way of managing that spend effectively, managing risk and compliance issues and also ensuring that those dollars are well-spent through meetings that focus clearly on their objectives," she said.
Duffy said her goal not only is to encourage corporate meeting professionals to communicate their value to senior management, but also to expose those executives to the industry in a different way.
"Senior executives don't question the value of meetings, but I think they have questioned whether the meeting planning function inside of their organization can be a partner in developing programs, meetings and events in a strategic level," Duffy said. "Often the meeting planner is called after all of those strategic decisions have been made."
Duffy said the association is planning an "executive power summit" in November, targeting senior executives from a variety of industries as well as senior supplier executives.
"We're also going to be launching our research agenda, which is focused on senior executives and gauging and documenting their perception of the value of meetings in their organization," she said.
MPI this year also hired a research director, Duffy said, to help launch these types of initiatives. The association also will contract with an outside company to carry out the research project. "It will go beyond anything that's been done so far in the industry," she said.
An online resource on career development that is customized for individual MPI members also will be formally launched in January, Duffy said. The resource, called My MPI, includes a career-assessment tool, job definitions and customized career-development plans. In addition, an online and one-on-one career counseling center with resume-building tips, mentoring and job postings will be created, she said.
Overseeing the MPI resource center will be Elaine Jastram Conrad, MPI's new vice president of membership and chapter relations, according to an association release. Conrad is a senior executive at the Irving, Texas-based American College of Emergency Physicians.
"It has been a huge undertaking and significant investment on our part to launch this," Duffy said.
MPI members got a chance to try the new online center at the MPI World Education Congress in Miami on July 10 to 12. The WEC had more than 3,400 attendees, the second-largest MPI event on record.
Duffy said predecessor Hugh Lee focused on execution and building MPI infrastructure, and 2003-04 chairwoman Theresa Breining focused on communication and bringing the strategic plan to life. For her own term, Duffy said the key word is "influence."
"We're really now in a position to get outside of our industry, and it really is about influence," she said. "How do we begin to influence people outside of our industry? It's really those senior stakeholders who have a big impact on us and what we do and we've got to get out in front of them and talk to them and get their perspective, understand and influence them."