Camille Paluscio, CMP Manager — travel, meetings and events
Volkswagen Group of America Inc.
Herndon, Va.

PAST Paluscio has worked for Volkswagen since the early 1980s, with the exception of four years when she ran her own company in the 1990s. At press time, she was juggling her new position as manager of travel, meetings, and events with her company's move from Auburn Hills, Mich., to Herndon, Va. In addition to collaborating with the company's human resources department on “look and see” trips for personnel who are changing locations, she is moving to Virginia, although most of her department will remain in Michigan.

CRED In 1999, Paluscio and a former boss proposed a new combined travel, meeting planning, and events department at VW. “We had talked about it off and on for years, and then one day we realized we should present a formal proposal.” Once the department was created, Paluscio spent the first few years wrapping her arms around meeting logistics. But once she started trying to gather data “and found that we weren't capturing the spend in any one place, I knew that I couldn't talk to suppliers from a position of knowledge.” Enter SMMP. “I realized that we needed to gather information, and then in my research, I came across SMMP, and it all made logical sense,” she says.

SUCCESS STORY “Once SMMP caught upper management's attention and opened everyone's eyes to the possibilities of real savings — I knew consolidation made sense, but it was a real achievement when my company recognized it as well.”

FORWARD-THINKING Her next challenge is continuing to grow a close relationship with procurement.

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