With the GBTA announcement this week that the innovative, thought-leadership Groups & Meetings Committee has dissolved, I had quite a few people ask me if I would consider excerpting the Strategic Meetings Management History chapter of my book which is now available on Amazon and iTunes. Honored to be a co-chair and participant of that genius group of leaders, I present the SMM History chapter in its entirety in the attached document.
Download Strategic Meetings Management-The History by Debi Scholar
One paragraph excerpted follows:
Kevin Iwamoto, who worked for Hewlett-Packard as Senior Global Commodity Manager and was finishing up his two-year term as President and CEO of the National Business Travel Association, noticed that travel and procurement managers had begun asking him advice on how to reduce the costs of all travel spend categories, including meetings and events. These curious leaders were becoming responsible for centralizing the travel and meeting expenses yet knew nothing about these indirect spend categories. Kevin could easily provide them with travel expertise, yet he could not find anything about meetings management. Sure, plenty of education existed on how to manage and plan meetings, but nothing about the business of meetings management. As if there were a darkened veil over far-fetched ideas during this era, he too was turned away by industry groups and associations claiming that he was delusional to even think that procurement could ever get involved in meetings management…”It’s too complicated and personal,” they claimed. With that rejection, he vowed to create a group of corporate travel and meeting experts who would create educational materials to guide travel and procurement managers in this new, unchartered territory. Approaching the NBTA Board seemed like an odd choice as NBTA was primarily devoted to business travel, yet why not expand the association’s business travel thought-leadership to include meetings management? After Kevin received support from his NBTA Board, he sought recommendations from industry friends and colleagues as to who should lead the new NBTA Committee. After much deliberation, he asked Tracey Wilt (Manager of Global Travel and Meetings Management at Xerox) and Maddy Caliri (AT&T Travel and Meetings Procurement Leader) to co-chair the new committee titled the NBTA Groups & Meetings (G&M) Committee.
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Debi Scholar, GLP, CMM, CMP, SSGB, CTE, CTT
• Author, Strategic Meetings Management: The Strategy Quick Reference Guide (2011)
• Meetings Management Mover and Shaker as selected by Corporate and Incentive Travel Magazine (2010)
• Top 20 Changemaker who influenced the meetings management industry by Corporate Meetings and Incentives (2008)
• Best Meeting Practitioner as selected by Business Travel News (2007)
*Debi is proud to be a regular contributor to Business Travel Executive Magazine.
*Debi is proud to be one of only seven 2011 Editorial Board members for Hotel Business Review at www.hotelexecutive.com for Conferences & Meetings.
Visit me at one of my upcoming speaking engagements; Topics vary per conference; Some sessions include components of SMM Bootcamp© and/or SMM Challenge©
December 1 – EMC Venue’s MEET
January – PCMA
March – Meetings Technology Expo
The Scholar Consulting Group LLC
Trusted Advisors and Superior Solutions for the Travel and Meetings Market
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908-304-4954
Benchmark your Strategic Meetings Management Program: http://www.smmbenchmark.com
Purchase the SMM Quick Reference Guide: http://amzn.to/qoM4dw
Debi has the following designations:
• Wharton Aresty Executive Education/National Business Travel Association (NBTA) Global Leadership Professional (GLP)
• Meeting Professionals International Certificate in Meetings Management (CMM)
• Convention Industry Council Certified Meeting Professional (CMP)
• NBTA Corporate Travel Expert (CTE)
• Six Sigma Green Belt (SSGB)
• Chauncey Certified Technical Trainer (CTT)
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