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ITALY – New MPI global strategies in the speech held by Paul Van Deventer in Rome
During a sumptuous cocktail, with the courtesy sponsorship by the
direction of St Regis Grand Hotel in Rome, the President and CEO Paul Van Deventer (image), in
charge since april 29th 2013, in his first visit to Italy, met the Italian Board of Directors,
chaired by Olimpia Ponno and some Italian members.
Attending the venue, influent professionals of the meeting industry, members and non members,
among them: Annamaria Ruffini, member of the Global Board of Site (Society of incentive and
travel executives) and president of the Italian Chapter of the Green Meeting Industry Council and
Mario Buscema, President of Federcongressi&eventi.
In his speech, Van Deventer summarized the strategic outlines of his mandate.
Paul Van Deventer, President and CEO MPI Global said: “I’m glad to be in Italy, because I know and value the extraordinary energy, enthusiasm and
passion of Italian membership. Passion has always been at the center of MPI message. Under my
presidency the mission of MPI will focus to help members’ careers to take off, and to increase
their business. I’m confident that the community will share such effort to consolidate professional
skills, jobs attitudes and business development.
It implies, at level of macro-strategy, to look forward, opening up to emerging Countries and far
markets, to cooperate with other associations and other segments, in accordance to the new
guidelines imposed by globalization and wider business horizons”.
Van Deventer explained that MPI also aims to enhance its reputation, investing in new technologies and communication tools,
to fill the gap among different cultures.
From a global point of view, compared to the positive trend in North-american, Canadian and
Northern Europe markets, the HQ looks with much more attention at the Southern Europe
economy and the Mediterranean area, by appointing two renowned professionals such as Federico
Toja and Pierre Fernandez in the respective roles of Senior Director of European Operations and
Director of Chapter Business Europe.
He went on saying that so far the community has followed an US focused model, but such model is
not applicable to far Countries, and therefore there will be the need to approach them with more local attitude, hoping
to provide MPI a real efficacy and expansion all over the world. From now on there will be more integration between the HQ and the chapters. They also have adopted a new financial model adequate to Europe: European Chapters will receive
higher rebates and throughout the time will have more access to sponsorship and finance by
hotel chains and destinations, historical sponsors of the initiatives carried out by the community.