FICP this week approved a small but meaningful update to the name of the association. The organization, formerly known as Financial & Insurance Conference Planners, is now Financial & Insurance Conference Professionals.
The change from “Planners” to “Professionals” evolved from surveys and focus groups with FICP members, “specifically regarding the need to elevate the perception of meeting planning as a respected and trusted profession,” says 2017 FICP Chair Joseph Scully, senior director of meeting and event management for John Hancock Financial Services. The new name, he says, “allows us to continue to evolve as an organization.”
The change, which coincides with FICP’s 60th anniversary year, emphasizes the professionalism that members bring to their companies, notes FICP Executive Director Steve Bova, “while also aligning more closely with other organizations within our industry."
The organization formally launched in 1967 as the Insurance Conference Planners Association and kept that name until 2005 when it became Financial & Insurance Conference Planners.