Small Meetings Co. Taps Corporate Vet For Strategy

M&I, a small Wisconsin-based corporate meeting planning company, in December hired meetings industry veteran Lisa Palmeri to launch a program of strategic management consulting services.

Palmeri previously worked as a corporate planner for pharma giant Abbott Laboratories and then as head of consulting for Santa Clara, Calif.-based meetings tech provider OnVantage Inc. She joined M&I after OnVantage merged with rival StarCite Inc., based in Philadelphia.

In addition to the benefits of working for a family-owned company closer to home in the Midwest, Palmeri said she chose M&I because it offered her a more executive role—vice president of strategic initiatives and planning— than did her previous positions.

"I was offered a role as an executive with a voice in a company that's pursuing its status as a woman-owned business and I really liked being a part of that," Palmeri said.

M&I's client base, while small, includes well-known brands like Abbott, John Deere, Hershey, Kellogg and Whirlpool. The average size of event the company handles is about 100 attendees. M&I provides services for corporate meetings and for corporate incentive programs.

"The clients are the leaders in their respective industries," Palmeri said. "They had a very good client portfolio and it allows me to work with companies that I haven't worked with before in some industries I haven't worked with before."

M&I has a staff of about 75, she said, and offers comprehensive planning services including air, sourcing and logistics. The company was one of the first to use meetings tech provider SeeUthere Technologies, which eventually became OnVantage.

A growing number of M&I customers are asking for assistance in managing their meeting policies and procedures in addition to event logistics, Palmeri said. "It's procurement policies, meeting policies, setting up procedures—a lot of the same types of things I did at OnVantage," according to Palmeri. "Helping companies understand how to use technology in the scope of planning meetings."

One current client uses M&I solely for consulting services, Palmeri said. Other needs range from simple group air arrangements to end-to-end event production.

The company uses StarCite to manage its volume of requests for proposals, and Palmeri said she has seen firsthand how M&I uses sourcing technology. Palmeri said she would continue to work with StarCite on product development.

"We are probably one of the largest users of the sourcing component," she said. "We meet with them to talk about system issues and enhancements."

Palmeri said she has a passion for sourcing strategies and is leading a team at M&I to revamp the company's own procurement policies.

"Sourcing is one area where there can be no hiccups. It has to be done perfectly every time. We do that, but that takes a lot of effort. We're constantly looking for ways to do it faster and better," she said. "Supporting all these different industries means that we have to understand each of their compliance guidelines."

Some guidelines, like Sarbanes-Oxley, apply to all publicly held companies. However others are industry-specific, such as regulations on medical and financial meetings, she said.

Keeping up with the shifting legal landscape is a challenge, she said, but M&I is banking on that expertise to target more pharmaceutical, manufacturing and food industry clients.

Another challenge for M&I moving forward is the generic nature of its brand. The company has not had the opportunity for much marketing, and rebranding is a possibility in the future, Palmeri said.

To push the company to higher prominence in the industry, M&I recently joined the National Business Travel Association as an allied member.

The company also is involved in local chapters of Meeting Professionals International, Palmeri said.

M&I used to offer corporate customers transient travel services, but is now focused solely on groups and meetings. However, past transient travel experience will help the company target corporate travel managers who are taking on corporate meeting management initiatives.