MPI Selects Leaders for 2006
Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 8/1/2005
Meeting Professionals Intl. has selected new leaders for what the organization believes will be a pivotal year.
Christine Duffy, president and CEO of Maritz Travel, was named chairwoman of the MPI board. Charlotte St. Martin, president and CEO of Charlotte St. Martin & Associates and former executive vice president of marketing for Loews Hotels, was picked as board chair of the MPI Foundation, which directs fundraising efforts.
According to Duffy, MPI is in a period of transition as it strives to build meeting planning into a recognized, more highly respected profession. "By July 2006, I would like to be able to say that MPI made great strides in elevating the meetings profession and impacting senior business executives about the strategic value that meetings — and those who produce them — bring to their businesses," she said.
MPI recently appointed Elaine Jastram Conrad vice president of membership and chapter relations. MPI's July 10–12 World Education Congress in Miami attracted 3,417 attendees from 28 countries. The event was the second largest in MPI's history — after its July 2001 WEC in Las Vegas with 3,461 attendees.
Members of the international and MPI Foundation board and European Council, as well as international committee chairs and chapter presidents, were also selected for terms that began July 1.
