McGettigan Undergoes Reorganization

<B>McGettigan Undergoes Reorganization</B>

By Chris Davis

Meetings management and consolidation firm McGettigan Partners has created a new organizational structure that splits its operations into the eastern and western regions. The strategy, officials said, will offer the company better operational efficiencies when working with corporate clients in its three primary markets--pharmaceutical, financial and technological.

McGettigan has expanded geographically in the past few years from its Philadelphia headquarters and Chicago offices to Boston in 1998, via the purchase of World Class Incentives, and to San Francisco in 1999 through the acquisition of Meetings Plus, which was focused on providing meeting management services to technology firms.

"Streamlining our sales and operations strategy in the East and West and investing in strengthening our current operations centers just made sense as a business strategy," said McGettigan president and COO Christine Duffy. "This new direction will enable us to focus on key markets that we serve and have our operations closer to those customers."

The firm has closed its Chicago offices as part of the reorganization, but sales representatives there were transferred east. Heading up the new western division is Carolyn West, who was president of Meetings Plus upon its acquisition by McGettigan (Meetings Today, Oct. 25, 1999). That firm, though it did not specialize in meetings consolidation, has allowed its owners access to its client list, which included some of the largest and most established technology firms in the country--a sector that McGettigan has long felt is ripe for consolidation initiatives. West, as western region division president, is responsible for all its sales, operations and technology development.

Cindy D'Aoust, formerly general manger of client services, will become eastern region division president and will be replaced by former Rosenbluth International executive and new McGettigan vice president Kathy Veit.

The moves continue the aggressive expansion strategy of Duffy and CEO Mimi McGettigan Kehan. The company in October announced plans to form a new company, Grass Roots McGettigan, as part of a partnership with a British incentive and performance improvement firm. The new company will offer McGettigan's corporate meetings consolidation model to both European companies and American companies with extensive business operations across the pond.

International consolidation is considered perhaps the most intricate and complex concept in meetings management, due to differing corporate cultures and the difficulties of overseas data compilation and directing meetings sponsors to specific suppliers. Still, the firm's management believes that large pharmaceutical companies are ready to take the step.