Appreciating the Power and Purpose of Our Community

Over the past four years I have witnessed incredible generosity, passion, subject matter expertise and knowledge through the effort of our volunteer leaders. When I started my journey with EIC in May of 2019, I was struck by how much the opportunity to be a part of the EIC volunteer leadership community meant to those involved.

One of the key reasons I heard often was the ability to meet industry peers from outside their traditional sphere of influence or network. This community of SMEs over the years has been directly involved in ensuring that EIC is able to fulfill its mission championing and supporting the industry through advocacy, research, professional standards and professional recognition.

One of the reasons I believe this community has been able to deliver such incredible work is that this EIC experience brings together professionals with diverse experience and backgrounds who are united by key global regions and industry sectors. This is reflected in all that we have been able to accomplish over the past four years as well as all that is currently underway – including the work of the CMP Commission and Job Task Analysis Task Force relative to the CMP Competency Profile Project, the ongoing work of the APEX Commission and Critical Response Task Force to ensure that we are updating all of the critical resources and effectively leveraging our research, work of the Sustainability and Social Impact committee to be our best advocates for the sustainable event standards, SEPC course as well as our Knowledge committee already hard at work on our education and programmatic plans for the 2024 CMP Advance, our Equity Task Force convening to deliver critical resources and education as a result of our benchmarking study, Global Awards Task force laying the foundation for an important moment this 16 October to celebrate those modeling the way and inspiring our workforce.

It’s been a tough summer for me personally, having to deal with some random events that have impacted my health as well as my family. As a result, I have been in what I would call a bit of a time out. I had the ability to reflect on many things. It is important to me to take this moment to express my sincere gratitude to our amazing team at EIC, our Board of Directors, EIC Council members, Strategic Partners, and Volunteer Leaders for their outstanding leadership and support on this journey to ensure that as a global federation uniquely positioned to unite our sector, we are collaborating for greater impact.

It is this spirit that will guide us so that we can truly be an industry that can catalyze meaningful change, inspire a work force and promote the true impact of the global business events industry.

Amy Calvert, CEO, Events Industry Council