Global Industry Leader Announced as New IAPCO President

New President
Mathias Posch, President of International Conference Services Ltd, was elected IAPCO President at the largest-ever IAPCO Annual General Assembly in Tokyo last week, and takes over from outgoing President Jan Tonkin for a two-year term.

'Meeting Quality - is more than just a tagline, it is a responsibility - to our clients, to our partners, to each other as well as the industry at large', says Mathias in his first IAPCO presidential message. 'Quality, is more than just a check list, it is an on-going commitment to furthering our abilities and to sharing our best practices with each other - it goes way beyond our membership and it gives us the opportunity to move our industry forward and, in fact, to lead it.'

Mathias goes on to say 'IAPCO is the voice for Professional Congress Organisers in our industry.' His mission over his term as president is to 'keep thinking big, keep innovating and keep strengthening our standing as PCOs'

Key focus areas for the IAPCO Council during his term are:

-       A strong commitment to the IAPCO Quality mandate and an active industry outreach to communicate it

-       Widening the Association's reach in areas like Asia and Latin America

-       Strengthening the networking and collaboration among members and providing new platforms to do so in order for IAPCO to grow further

-       Reaching out to new emerging markets and becoming more inclusive as an association to support the ongoing development in the industry and help raise quality and standards as a whole.

New council
Along with a new president, the 9-strong Council welcomed three new elected members.

The three new council members, Barbara Calderwood, MCI UK; Monica Freire, AIM Group International and Sarah Markey-Hamm, ICMS Pty Ltd join the existing council members to create a truly global team.

Mathias says 'I am very proud to be leading an international team with such broad and diverse experience. They are a great reflection of our association and our industry and each member contributes a unique view and strengths to the Council.'

IAPCO Council 2018 - 2019
President: Mathias Posch, ICS, Canada

Vice President: Ori Lahav, Kenes Group, Israel

Immediate Past President: Jan Tonkin, The Conference Company, New Zealand

Treasurer: Keith Burton, African Agenda, South Africa

Barbara Calderwood, MCI, UK

Monica Freire, AIM Group International, Portugal

Sarah Markey-Hamm, ICMS Pty Ltd, Australia

Kayo Nomura, Congress Corporation, Japan

Nicolette van Erven, Congress by design bv, Netherlands

www.iapco.org