Insights on strategic meetings management from Jan Hennessey, CMP, CMM, Fireman’s Fund Insurance

Jan 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Regina Baraban

The evolving profession of strategic meeting planning documented by our recent reader survey is led by change agents unafraid to address new paradigms. Among them is Jan Hennessey, CMP, CMM, a 20-year industry planner who in 2006 rejoined her former company, Fireman's Fund Insurance Co., as senior director, meetings & event management, to lead a new internal planning department. In addition to managing 25 meetings a year, including a large producer conference, Hennessey has been helping to develop strategic meetings management synergies with colleagues at Fireman's Fund's sister company, Allianz Life. A former international board member of Meeting Professionals International and two-term trustee on the MPI Foundation, she has just been elected to Financial and Insurance Conference Planners' board of directors, serving as vice-president, communications. She spoke with us recently from her offices at Fireman's Fund corporate headquarters in Novato, Calif., near San Francisco.