A forum at the Palau De Congressos, Fira Montjuic in Barcelona, attended by several hundred European Incentives, Business Travel and Meetings (EIBTM) delegates, heard American business leadership guru Barbara Kellerman give a keynote on ’The End of Leadership’.
Show Director Graeme Barnett said the first EIBTM Forum marked the start of the 25th anniversary year and was designed to “kick start” the week. It followed in the line of such forums produced by Reed Travel Exhibitions at its luxury travel events, said Barnett.
Kellerman’s political analysis was more Oprah Winfrey than Henry Kissinger, however, with a long list of examples drawn from the United States, including David Petraeus, Martha Stewart and John Corzine, all supposedly brought down by bloggers or ’followers’, a theory extrapolated to the Arab Spring and most things in between.
A discussion attempting to link Kellerman’s ’thesis’ to the international meetings industry was gamely helped along by panellists Geoff Donaghy, Group Director at convention centre management group AEG Ogden, and Sherrif Karamat, President of the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA).
James Latham of International Meetings Review, facilitating the debate, asked Kellerman how Bill Clinton had managed to be re-elected post the Monica Lewinsky scandal. “He wasn’t,” was the answer.
Karamat made clear that a new kind of leadership was being formed in the MICE industry and Donaghy noted the continuing need for strong leaders.
Kellerman was also stumped by a question from the audience referring to the MICE industry. Clearly, we need to brief our keynote speakers a little harder on our industry in some cases.
In other business of the forum, the Joint Meetings Industry Council’s President Philippe Fournier announced former President of the International Association of Exhibitions and Events (IAEE), Steven Hacker, as the winner of its ’Power and Achievement’ Award.
CAT Publications’ Martin Lewis was also recognised for the inaugural EIBTM Lifetime Achievement Award.
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