Joann Kerns
Associate director of global meeting management
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.
Plainsboro, N.J.

PAST Kerns moved from an administrative position at McGettigan (now Maritz) to a senior account management position, managing the Bristol-Myers Squibb account, and then was recruited by BMS in 1995 to become an in-house meeting manager. In her current role, she manages all international medical, congress, and association meetings with external participants.

CRED It took Kerns only a few short years to get to a level in her career that often takes people decades. In that time, she had advanced to a senior leadership role at BMS and was instrumental in helping the company to develop a fully consolidated process for managing its internal and external meetings. She serves on several executive committees that help to shape the processes for meetings management, and she takes part in business planning sessions with the U.S. and global marketing teams.

FORWARD-THINKING Her goals include ramping up the company's global meetings management program. She participates on the corporate user and steering committees to design and shape technology resources to enhance operational excellence and to improve processes for tracking and reporting data.

GIVE BACK Kerns is always happy to take time to speak with college kids from Temple University, New York University, Cornell, and other schools who are pursuing careers in meeting planning. She tells the students: “Finish school. Push your education as far as you can take it.”

MENTORS “I was trained by the best,” says Kerns. Specifically Lynn Ridzon, Kerns' former boss at BMS, who has since taken the role of director of strategic sourcing and procurement at Amgen. Also: Christine Duffy, CEO of Maritz; many of the senior leadership at McGettigan; and her friend and brother-in-law, Mark Phillips, an executive at StarCite.

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