New ACTE Prez Garth Jopling Sets Agenda
New Association of Corporate Travel Executives president Garth Jopling is setting his sights on enhancing the association's educational initiatives, bringing more cooperation among members across the regions and furthering the organization's political agenda. Jopling, who is PricewaterhouseCoopers travel manager for Canada, took office last month at the conclusion of the ACTE conference in Dublin. He succeeded Mark Williams, PwC director of travel and meeting management for North America.
Education has been at the center of ACTE's existence, and Jopling plans to continue that legacy with some slight tweaking. "We're going to move more into interactive dialogues," he said, noting that ACTE began this new interactive initiative in Dublin, with the addition of new workshops.
Jopling also wants to focus on tying together regional segments of the organization. Since ACTE is "the one organization that has global aspects all under one roof," he said, it is in a unique position to create a dialogue on global issues and building international activity.
ACTE is active in the United States, Canada, EMEA and Asia/Pacific. Jopling wants the parts of the whole to "strengthen within their own regions and coordinate at the global level."
When asked how he plans on bringing the regions closer together, Jopling said, "On some of the committees, we're bringing more people from different regions to work on single issues. Issues that happen in one region have a ripple effect on the other regions as well."
Jopling added that the data issue continues to be an ongoing debate with implications across the globe, for which ACTE will serve as a watchdog.
Jopling also plans to build participation in the organization with new types of members. "We have the goal of growing the regions, not just in numbers, but more in terms of the seniority of the individual we're attracting as well," he said. "We want to get the senior members in the industry above vice president on the vendor side. On the corporate side, we'll still go after the travel manager, but we also want to reach into other levels of the organization that are associated with travel."
Meanwhile, ACTE last month also announced senior vice president of sales and marketing for Navigant International Greeley Koch as the president-elect for 2005. Since the last election, ACTE began limiting the length of presidential terms to one year and selecting the president a year in advance.
"ACTE wanted to establish a strong degree of continuity with its officers," a spokesperson said. Koch will work with Jopling in a "supporting role" before taking office next year.
Formerly the travel manager at Bank of America, Navigant's Koch is serving as chair for ACTE's United States regional council and is a former chair of ACTE's education committee.