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Jeff Calmus, CMP

PAST Calmus spent a decade working in conference planning for a series of convention hotels before joining The New England, a life insurance company based in Boston, in 1990. He was director of conference planning there until the company was acquired by MetLife in 1998.

CRED He and the conferences team at MetLife were out in front of the centralization trend. In the late 1990s, after a string of acquisitions, MetLife was in a centralizing mode. But even more important, Calmus says, was that the department saw a need for a more cost-effective and strategic approach to planning meetings and for more consistent recognition programs. “We took an inventory of all the meetings. Then we had to go to the business owners who had been running them and tell them we were now supporting all meetings. Some of them had to give up a little bit. But over time, we showed our value. The key was having senior-executive support. Without that, it’s really an uphill battle.” Although the principles of strategic meetings management have been in place for a decade, MetLife’s conference department rolled out its formal SMMP in February. “We tightened up the parameters on meeting spend and meeting sites. We had a lot of the bases covered, but we wanted a tighter wrap on it.”

SUCCESS STORY One of the goals Calmus has achieved at MetLife is to shift the department from being order-takers to being consultants. “We’ve become more strategic. We are accepted as a business,” he says. “We get more involved in our client’s objectives, understanding what they are trying to do and making suggestions.”

FORWARD THINKING He and his team are focused on evolving the meeting experience, he says, by asking, “How do we enhance the look and feel of our meetings to mirror the way people receive information today?” Qualifiers are more food savvy because of celebrity chefs and the Food Network, he adds. They watch HDTV. They have surround-sound. They communicate instantly via technology. “Looking at these factors, how do attendees experience our meetings now? Do the same motivation and recognition models apply?”

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