NBTA: First Strategic Meetings Management Certification Course Sells Out

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. November 09, 2009

ALEXANDRIA, VA - The National Business Travel Association (NBTA), the leading provider of corporate travel education and professional development, this week offered the first Core Week 1 in the new Strategic Meetings Management Certification (SMMC) professional development program. More than 20 meetings and travel professionals attended the sold-out education event at Emory University in Atlanta, which focused on the theory and practice of Strategic Meetings Management Programs (SMMP), an approach to managing corporate meeting and event activities and processes.

NBTA President & CEO Craig Banikowski, CCTE, C.M.P., CMM, said, “When the new course was announced in the Fall, meetings professionals from around the world began to contact NBTA for additional information about and to register for the SMMC program. The SMMP concept has garnered such a positive response over the years, it is no surprise that the program's first Core Week sold out and has already received raving reviews.”

The SMMC program consists of two core weeks and elective classes. The curriculum is designed to drive further development of accepted best practices, lead to creative new “next-practices,” and enhance communication and leadership skills in developing and implementing global meeting policies, workflows and technologies. Upon completion of the course, graduates will earn the SMMC designation, indicating a proficiency in strategic meetings management.

Lasse Haugaard from Novo Nordisk in Denmark attended the first Core Week 1 because his main responsibility in Corporate Sourcing is to implement an SMMP. He commented, “Obviously, there is a lot of work getting an overview of the Meetings & Events activities in a company with more than 25,000 employees world wide. From an educational point of view, I find it very difficult to find peers that are at the same pace as myself - this is my primary reason to seek inspiration from NBTA."

Banikowski continued, “The meetings professionals here this week have taken a huge step in advancing their careers as well as the global meetings and events industry. This unparalleled education program will continue to provide them with the resources and tools necessary to help create efficiencies, minimize risk and standardize processes in corporate meetings management.”

NBTA pioneered the body of thought around strategic meetings management with a series of papers launched in 2004. The NBTA Groups & Meetings committee that writes the papers continues to publish new installments in the Framework for Success: Strategic Meetings Management Programs series. The most recent paper, A Strategic Approach to Small Meetings, offers strategies and solutions relating to small meetings. These resources have served as how-to guides for companies around the globe as they look to maximize value and minimize risk by developing standardized meeting programs and deploying them across a company or division. The papers are available at www.nbta.org.