Over 70 corporate buyers from a variety of multi-national companies attended the first ever Exclusively Corporate @IMEX event at the Rocco Forte Villa Kennedy in Frankfurt earlier today. Together they control annual meetings and events budgets in excess of $200 million.
The new event is the latest in a series of meeting industry innovations by IMEX. This event is designed to provide corporate buyers with a high-level, private forum offering tailored education and networking plus expertly-facilitated discussion.
Both meeting planners and senior executives from across the corporate sector attended the exclusive event, including buyers from: Amway, Aviva PLC, Barclays Bank, Bayer Healthcare, Estee Lauder, Fidelity Worldwide Investment, GlaxoSmithKline, HSBC, Johnson & Johnson, Lilly, Merck & Co, Microsoft, Novartis, and SAP AG.
Buyers arrived on Sunday evening for a networking dinner and were also given Monday morning free to work, do a site visit or conduct private meetings. The education programme kicked off at midday yesterday (Monday 20 May) with a networking lunch. It was followed by a general session with panellists: Meredith Smith, Director of Travel and Meetings, Asia Pacific and Japan, Merck and Co; Des Duggan, Manager Education and Staffing at IBM Inside Sales Europe and Alise Long, Manager, Corporate Events and Meetings, DSM. The session was facilitated by Terri Breining CMP, CMM and President of the Breining Group, who also co-facilitates the IMEX America Executive Meeting Forum.
In another first for IMEX the general session was webcast live to allow the content and feedback from this important audience to be shared as widely as possible with the industry. The webcast was sponsored by London & Partners (formerly Visit London).
During the afternoon, the group broke into two tracks with the senior executives, including heads of corporate meetings programmes taking part in a three-hour group discussion. The objective was to explore and challenge industry norms and current ways of doing business while sharing practical examples of best-in-class corporate meetings and events practices together with relevant innovations.
Separately two peer-led case studies were presented for the benefit of the other attendees who comprised corporate planners responsible for meetings and events delivery. The first presentation was “Hybrid Meetings and the Art of Career Development”, which was presented by Steph Pfeilsticker, Virtual Strategy Manager, Event Planning and Field Recognition at Thrivent Financial. This was followed by “How to deliver 149 events in 2 days – the DSM Bright Launch Event”, presented by Alise Long, Manager, Corporate Events and Meetings, DSM and facilitated by Roger Long, Owner and Founder of Blue Ox Consulting. Both presentations were carefully crafted to ensure that participants went away with practical action points, new approach ideas and fresh tactics they could implement for immediate and positive impact.
The day’s programme rounded off with facilitated open-space discussions based on topics chosen by the attendees themselves. In the evening many of the buyers attended Site Nite Europe, while others took part in private hosted buyer events across the city.
Debora Piovesan from the Commercial Department of Daiichi Sankyo Italia, Rome, said of the event: “There’s been huge value for me in meeting and talking to other buyers here today and the quality of the programme has been even better than I expected – the speakers were particularly impressive and of a high calibre. I’ve never been to IMEX before so I’m looking forward to that and I’ll be here until Thursday.”
Speaking about the importance of the new event, IMEX Group Chairman, Ray Bloom, said: “We consulted a great deal with partners and through focus groups prior to launching this event. It was important that we got the programme absolutely right so that it delivered real value to those taking part and justified their attendance. Over 70% of those attending have never been to IMEX before, which is a great testament to the event. I’m delighted that the feedback we’ve received was extremely good. All of those who came, which includes both European and long-haul buyers, are now staying on at the show for between one and three days to meet and do business with exhibitors.”
Sponsors for Exclusively Corporate @IMEX included the Villa Kennedy who hosted the event; Fairmont, Swissotel, Raffles who provided a hosted dinner; the Switzerland Convention & Incentive Bureau who sponsored breakfast on Tuesday morning; MCI who assisted with the programme development and London & Partners who made possible the live stream of the General Session.
