During its Wednesday press conference at IMEX America in Las Vegas, MPI leaders discussed successes in 2023 (including at IMEX America) and highlighted exciting events and educational opportunities that are on the horizon.
MPI’s press conference on Wednesday at IMEX America was jam-packed with important announcements about the future, along with highlights from another successful IMEX America in Las Vegas.
Paul Van Deventer, MPI president and CEO, discussed some the key new leaders at MPI, including the 2024 volunteer leaders Michelle Allgaur (incoming Board of Directors chair and senior vice president, education and engagement for the Financial Services Institute) and Susie Townsend (incoming Board of Trustees chair and chief destination experience officer for Visit Indy). He also announced the organization’s new chief financial officer, Tim Boober, who brings a remarkable financial track record from Freeman, The Expo Group and the nonprofit space.
Van Deventer also discussed an initiative to rethink the infrastructure MPI provides for chapter leaders and chapters, which involves brand standard guidelines, a consistent web platform, clearly defined bylaws and simplification of governance requirements.
“Chapters are the backbone of MPI,” he said. “This year, we’re going to finally be aligning the fiscal year of MPI Global with the fiscal year of the chapters.”
Van Deventer also discussed MPI’s signature research, Meetings Outlook, which continues to project an optimistic forecast for the near future of the meeting industry, and he shared some of the successes of Smart Monday at IMEX America.
“We had 1,200 attendees and a lot of standing-room-only sessions, including our opening keynote on Monday,” he said. “We had some really good engagement with our keynotes, as well as great participation with our booth activations all week long.”
Drew Holmgreen, MPI’s chief brand officer, discussed the European Meetings & Events Conference—March 3-5 in Luxembourg—and why attendees should look forward to an idea incubator with exciting activities including Learning Journeys influenced heavily by the local destination. He also said the excitement is building for MPI’s 2024 World Education Congress (WEC)—May 20-22 in Louisville—which is expected to attract 2,300 participants with activities such as an opening event at Churchill Downs.
“Our WEC theme is ‘Craft Your Experience,’” he said. “We’re really leaning into a lot of customization tools like artificial intelligence (AI) and others that will allow our attendees to make an experience onsite that’s extremely relevant to them.”
Holmgreen also announced MPI’s 2024 Industry Leader Award recipient: Steve O’Malley.
“Steve was chair of the MPI International Board of Directors in 2020 and 2021—rather challenging years,” he said. “He was an exceptional leader for MPI and is an exceptional leader in his current role as COO at Maritz Global Events,” he said. “He was also inducted into the EIC Hall of Leaders this year, so this is a big year for Steve, and we’re excited to experience this alongside him.”
Holmgreen also announced MPI’s acquisition of The EVENT, one of Canada’s largest meeting industry events—which has largely been run by three MPI chapters: Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal-Quebec.
“This is a little bit of a follow through on our strategy to launch regional events around the world,” he said. “We’re going to continue to build out this portfolio so that we can have a better international footprint through regional events.”
Jessie States, vice president of the MPI Academy, discussed the Academy’s new brand and tagline, “Rise to Your Next.”
“MPI is here to help everyone to rise to their next, whatever that next might be,” she said. “Everyone’s next is a little different, but MPI has the tools, the network, the global community that’s going to help you define what it is that you're looking to do.”
States also discussed MPI Academy accomplishments this year—which includes high satisfaction levels for certificate programs, the Global Meetings Industry Day 12-hour broadcast, WEC and the Thought Leaders Summit—and announced an AI certificate program.
“We know the impact AI is going to have on the careers within our space, in a very positive way,” she said. “There are a lot of tools out there but meeting professionals in general aren’t entirely sure how to utilize those tools to their own advantage. We’re really excited to partner with Reposite to help to develop this content, and our first delivery of that program will be in January 2024.”
“MPI is here to help everyone to rise to their next, whatever that next might be.”
Another exciting partnership is with Encore: an on-demand certificate program focused on AV fundamentals.
“Encore has agreed to allow MPI access to its internal training programs,” States said. “They are opening up employee training modules to our MPI community. As meeting professionals, we all work with incredible AV teams, but we look at their equipment and we have no idea how it works, and we often don’t know how to carry on a really smart conversation with our technician partners. These programs are going to enable meeting organizers to be able to have those critical conversations.”
MPI, the Neu Project and EventWell are also partnering on a new certificate program.
“We believe strongly that the 25% of neurodiverse participants in our industry are underserved and that MPI has an obligation to our community and this industry to ensure that we are creating programming that helps everyone to feel incredibly welcome and safe in our environments,” States said.
She also provided a sneak peek into a project in partnership with Visit Detroit.
“While this is very regional work at this point, we plan to take the tools that we’re creating and deliver them across our entire chapter platform,” States said. “We are creating a toolkit for high schools to better explain our industry and the careers available to high school students within our space. We believe it’s important to reach students when they’re younger to help to explain what an incredible career this can be.”
Townsend pointed out that the MPI Foundation has raised and distributed $1.8 million to 3,200 individuals since 2020 and with the support of ECPAT is developing a toolkit to help MPI chapters fight human trafficking.
She also said that the Foundation helped support 37 MPI members in Hawaii impacted by the recent wildfires by extending their memberships for next year.
Finally, Townsend noted that the MPI Foundation raised $410,000 through four IMEX America initiatives: a silent auction, a golf tournament, the Rendezvous event at Drai’s (sponsored by Caesars Entertainment) and the live auction at Red, White and You.
“We’re thrilled with the funds raised to help our members,” she said.
