Kathy Rust
Vice president corporate meetings and events
Washington Mutual Inc.
Seattle, Wash.

PAST Rust began her career in the travel business, and over time transitioned to event travel and finally event management. After spending time managing a travel agency, she left the U.S. for a number of years, living in both Haiti and Québec. Upon her return to the event business, she went to work for American Express managing its event travel team, and then moved to Microsoft as an event travel manager, where she ended up managing Microsoft's global travel program for four years. She moved to WaMu in 2005.

CRED Her experience working with the Groups and Meetings Committee of the National Business Travel Association helped to give Rust a good understanding of what it took to implement a strategic meetings management program at a corporate level. “I understood the need to manage spend, collect data, and implement good policies, but I never had the chance to implement them at Microsoft. When I went to WaMu, its strategic meetings management program was in its infancy, and I've been able to formalize the use of technology, develop a preferred-vendors program, work with key planners to collect data, and establish more effective communications.”

SUCCESS STORY Rust recalls her early days at Microsoft, when her team took over some business that was beyond the scope of what they were supposed to be able to handle. “We got the business, pulled the program together, and changed the whole momentum of our team. We grew from three to 18 persons, and instead of handling meetings with 3,000 people, we had meetings of up to 15,000.”

FORWARD-THINKING At WaMu, she is once again in a position to effect change. “I came here at a great time. It's exciting to see us tighten up our meeting infrastructure and make tools work. With the team we have now, we have a strong voice at the table, and we'll be in a strong position to influence our key executives.”

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