Meeting Planning’s Executive Ceiling Problem

Call it a fork in the road, or maybe even a dead end. The fact is that many senior planners who have risen to the title of director or VP in their departments often run straight into the executive ceiling.  

They’re forced to make a choice. They can start their own business, change companies, or stay put and try to parlay their skills into an entirely new role in a different division of their company. 

The responsibility for the meetings industry’s executive ceiling problem lies with employers who don’t see the inherent value in having meetings and events, said Carolynn Santos, executive director at the Senior Planners Industry Network.

“The shift will happen when companies understand and invest in the meeting planning function as part of marketing, branding, and sales, and stop viewing marketing as an overhead cost.”

The good news, however, is that planners have more options than they realize.

It all starts with redefining yourself, said Harris Schanhaut, founder of Excellence in Event Effectiveness, who formerly managed global events for Community Brands.

The planners who advance the farthest stop thinking of themselves as event professionals, he said. “They are actually business leaders who use events, strategists who understand experiences, and operators who understand execution. That shift separates career-long planners from future organizational leaders.”

Try Different Roles

Throughout her career, Karen Heslin has strategically maneuvered her career path to take on multiple roles beyond meeting planning. In the 18 years she spent in the meetings department at Metlife, where she worked her way up to director, she collaborated with leadership to create a senior meeting manager role where there was none. She also created an operations manager role for herself.

“I saw an opportunity because we didn’t have someone looking strictly at operations and resources, streamlining processes, creating a playbook, and things like that,” she said. “It was something I enjoyed doing, but not every planner would.” 

After being downsized, she eventually decided to move out of the insurance industry altogether and into technology, and was hired to manage corporate travel procurement at Dynatrace.

”My event experience got me in the door and allowed me to take on global travel, and my operations experience gave me the background to take that next step into procurement,” she said.

The key to getting the job was that she had connected her role to revenue. “I had always been driven toward sourcing, supplier relationships, contract negotiations, the strategic oversight of event spend, and minimizing risk and savings. If you don’t have that connection to how events increase revenue for a company and are not able to show ROI, you’re going to be missing an important piece.”

Move to Grow

Not all planners are ready to take a chance and start down a new path, especially if it’s only a lateral move.

Christine Gaudet, founder and president of Gaudet Event Strategy + Advisory, suggests volunteering as a way to sample other roles. The Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association, for one, allows volunteers to work in various departments.

“They realize that when women volunteer, it’s often for administrative roles that are not visible, so they let people volunteer to do stretch roles,” she said. “You can volunteer in the marketing department, or in membership, and work with the team to learn the job.”

Santos finds her members are frustrated by what she views as a gap in senior-level education, tools, and resources for planners with extensive experience. “There is an emphasis on bringing in new talent but it’s important to ensure that the current talent is learning and growing in their careers.”

However, sometimes you have to move to grow, says Heslin. “In certain industries, like insurance, planners stay in their jobs forever because they’re great jobs. But sometimes doing the thing that no one else wants to do can lead you to the next step.”  

The fact is that most planners are already equipped for many corporate roles, said Schanhaut — project managers, program managers, business operations managers, customer experience managers, even chief of staff jobs among them.

“It’s all about how you position yourself,” he said. “If you are looking for a field marketing role, for example, you should be able to maintain or even increase your compensation. The key is recognizing that you are already performing field marketing functions without realizing it.”

A senior planner who is managing a $1 million event budget, working with sales leadership, driving lead generation events, managing trade show strategy, reporting pipeline influence, and negotiating six-figure vendor contracts has already mastered demand generation, budget management, stakeholder management, and business strategy.

If your qualifications are presented in that way, said Schanhaut, “A hiring manager may view you as already being 70 to 80% qualified for the job.”