When Jennafer Ross officially took the reins as president of the Philadelphia Area Chapter of Meeting Professionals International last month, the expectant mom said she knew she'd be fighting economic forces beyond her control.
Meeting Professionals International is regarded as one of the most influential associations for meeting professionals, with 24,000 members worldwide. The 31-year-old Philadelphia chapter, which Ross began presiding over last week, is the 10th-largest of 58 chapters across the globe. It has 655 members throughout the five-county Philadelphia area and Delaware.
Ross, 37, who has been in the meetings industry for almost 14 years - with the last seven years as a certified meeting professional - said her industry was facing a triple whammy: a bad economy, a decrease in corporate travel, and the lingering effects of the disclosure that a few American International Group Inc. executives partied at a lavish resort after their company received government bailout money.
"It's trying times," said Ross, "but out of trying times, comes excellence. It's an amazing opportunity."
Question: What does a meeting planner do?
Answer: You handle all of the logistics of a program or meeting: the when and where, the food and beverage to support the people, the equipment for audiovisuals, transportation, rooming, everything. All the itty-bitty pieces.
As a planner, you have to set the tone. If attendees have a really rough start, it will be rougher for them to achieve their goal - whether it's to focus on the content in a sales seminar, vote on something in a shareholders' meeting, or launch a new product.
Q: How has the attitude changed toward meeting professionals and the industry as a whole?
A: Just 15 years ago, we weren't even recognized as an industry or profession, and now we are on most college campuses. We are a hospitality-management degree. We are a solid, valid industry.
Q: How challenging is this current business climate?
A: In the last 12 months, we've been taking the hits. The financial spend restrictions that are being forced on companies as a result of legislation in Washington has resulted in a chilling effect on the industry. Everyone is rolling back the carpet, waiting to see who does what first, out of fear or retribution.
Take, for instance, the incentive programs which are reward trips to employees for a job well done. At companies that are still giving them, they are much quieter and smaller, and their numbers have been cut in half. In some cases, canceled altogether.
I think cutting back on incentives is the way to go. Eliminating them altogether is not. People are incentive-based. If you cancel incentives, what is the message to other employees? Where is that incentive to strive to be the best they can be?
Q: How is PAMPI countering the misconception that incentive programs and meetings are all lavish free-for-alls resulting from the bad publicity that AIG received?
A: It comes back to educating corporate decision-makers, Washington lawmakers, and the community. People still need to meet. Business is based on relationships, reputation, and networking. While virtual meetings, which I refer to as teleconferencing times 1,000, will help offset the cost of a face-to-face program, it will never replace it. Doing business is relationship-driven. That's where the technological end of things will not really allow us to build those relationships.
Q: How did you get started in the industry?
A: From 1997 to 1999, I did company picnics, trade shows, and exhibit booths for a small, health-care consulting firm in Jenkintown. In 1999, I took a job with SEI Investments out of Oaks, as a corporate meeting planner. In the last five years I've run my own independent meeting-management company out of my home, where I plan international meeting events for U.S.-based companies going abroad.
Q: What is PAMPI's job in selling the expanded Convention Center, which will have 23 additional meeting rooms and an extra 123,000 square feet of meeting/banquet space, when it debuts in 2011?
A: To promote it and to help the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau promote it. As a nonprofit association, our job is really to bring together other like-minded individuals, provide education at a variety of different levels, provide networking activities among our peers, and to promote the city.
The expanded Convention Center will allow hoteliers to be able to fill more rooms, restaurants to have full-capacity seating, and for the city to be able to host larger conventions and conferences that in the past haven't been able to come here.
Jennafer Ross
Birthplace: Philadelphia - Jefferson Hospital.
Occupation: Global meeting manager.
Hometown: West Chester.
Education: Elon College, B.S.; Temple Meeting Planning Certificate Program; certified meeting professional (CMP).
Personal: Husband, Michael; children, Matthew, 5, and Mackenzie, 3; expecting her third child Sept. 3.
Management style: To provide as much information as possible, step out of the way, and be available for support.
Last book read: Cook Yourself Thin (a cookbook).
Last movie seen: Twilight.
Best advice: Be true to who you are as a person and do not sacrifice your values or morals for anyone or anything.
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Join Jennafer Ross, certified meeting professional, in a live online chat today at 11 a.m. at http://www.philly.comEndText