Since Joining Destination Hotels in 1999 Kevin has held sales leadership positions at The Inverness Hotel, Terranea Resort and the national sales team. He currently serves as Vice President of Global Group Sales for Two Roads Hospitality the parent company for Destination Hotels, ALila Hotels and Resorts, Joie de Vivre Hotels, Thompson Hotels, and tommie hotels. He is inspired by a dedicated team of sales professionals who serve from their heart and are committed to creating exceptional meeting experiences for their customers. He holds a Bachelor Degree in Restaurant Hotel Management from Keuka College and a certificate of completion in Kitchen Production Management from Swiss Hotel Management School “Les Roches.” In addition, he completed the management training course at Walt Disney World’s Disney University. He calls Colorado home, but is a modern nomad and has traveled to all seven continents.

FastFive Interview

Born and raised in the south of France, Agnès also lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Grand Case, St. Martin prior to moving to the United States in 1981. She is fluent in French and Spanish and has a working knowledge of Brazilian Portuguese. Her professional background includes owning her own incentive company for over a decade and filling the role of strategic meeting manager in multiple industry sectors, including Life Sciences. For the last 14 years, Agnès has worked for leading agencies, responsible for implementing, growing, and leading International teams and accounts across the globe, delivering programs in over 50 countries.

Agnès joined MCI USA in 2015 to lead the Corporate Meetings & Events division across multiple industry sectors. As a thought leader/subject matter expert in the meetings industry, Agnès is frequently invited as a Subject Matter Expert contributor on SMMP, International & Life Sciences subjects, in addition to serving as an advisory board member for various global hotel brands. Canonica obtained her Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) designation in 2000, as well as her Certification in Meeting Management (CMM) in March 2008. Agnès is also an active member of the Healthcare Businesswomen's Association (HBA) and currently serving a three-year term on the CIC CMP Governance Commission.

FastFive Interview

Becky Cavanaugh began her career in both the meetings industry and the Contract Research Organization world in 2002 at a niche company in Cincinnati where she spent five years planning meetings and last served as Manager, Client Management and Business Development . She briefly left the CRO world to expand her experience in the events industry to try exhibit management. It was only six months when she realized it wasn’t for her. In 2007, Becky joined the Global Clinical Education and Strategic Programs team at INC Research. After a number of promotions within the team, she is now the Associate Director, Strategic Programs and leads the Americas region. Becky's role as an Associate Director includes growth and management of the Americas region staff, ensuring successful program management by her team and building organizational capacity to increase work effectiveness and cost efficiencies. In Becky’s spare time (when she isn’t traveling for work-which isn’t very often), she enjoys spending time with her family and friends in her hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio. Becky has an extremely supportive husband and a wonderful “mini-me” daughter who’s a high school senior and soon to be studying Stage Management/Theater in college. Becky’s favorite city in the world she’s gotten to visit is Istanbul (with Florence, Italy a close 2nd).

Marlize Eckert is Head of Compliance Solutions at GCO (Global Conference Organisers) B.V. based in The Netherlands. GCO is a professional meetings and events’ organiser within the life sciences industry, successfully operating with a global footprint for close to 30 years.

Marlize manages the Compliance department focusing on pharmaceutical compliance requirements and mandatory reports related to meetings and events within the Pharma industry such as Open Payments and EFPIA Disclosure reports.

Marlize has previously held an office manager and compliance related position at Samsung Corporation, a sales related position at Xerox Corporation and a project coordinator position at a non-profit organization travelling worldwide promoting education by supplying vital literature resources, encouraging cross-cultural understanding, training young people and providing needed relief.

Marlize earned a bachelor degree in business administration from the Pontifical Catholic University in Brazil, has a Healthcare Meeting Compliance Certification (HMCC) and a European Healthcare Compliance Certification (HCCP) by Seton Hall Law University.

FastFive Interview

With his business partner Patrick Delaney, Pádraic is currently Managing Partner at SoolNua, a specialist agency helping destinations, hotels and venues with marketing, strategy and training for the MICE marketplace. Prior to founding SoolNua, Gilligan was Vice President of Ovation, MCI’s global DMC network and Vice President of Industry Relations at MCI.

Following a 13 year career in education, teaching at second and third levels, he started Delaney Marketing Consultants in 1994 with Patrick Delaney. In 2002 Delaney Marketing acquired Ovation and re-branded as Ovation Group. In June 2007 Ovation was acquired by MCI Group and Gilligan led a robust global expansion which saw the establishment of offices at 100 global destinations under the Ovation Global DMC brand.

In 2004 he was elected to the International Board of the SITE and served as international President of this global organisation in 2008. He has won many industry awards including Industry Personality of the Year from Meetings.net in 2009, Destination Management Professional of the Year from ADMEI in 2012 and Changemaker in 2015 with US based MeetingsNet. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the SITE Foundation and on the Advisory Board of the Grow Dublin Taskforce. He is ranked at 14 on the Bizzabo list of global MICE influencers and blogs regularly for EventMB and on his own popular blog, http://www.padraicino.com

Contact: Padraic Gilligan [email protected] Tel +353 86 811 3134

FastFive Interview

Brian began his career 20+ years ago working at the Krisam Group, a hotel sales and marketing company. He joined WorldTravel Meetings & Incentives on-site at Warner-Lambert as a Sourcing Manager in 1999, staying through the Pfizer acquisition. In 2006, he joined Maritz Travel on-site at Schering-Plough to develop their International sourcing department.

Following Merck’s acquisition of Schering in 2010, he joined the Maritz team on-site at Novartis to develop an international sourcing department there. He moved to Forest Laboratories, Inc. in November, 2013 as Manager, Global Procurement, Meeting/Conference Sourcing, overseeing the company’s venue sourcing program. Promoted to Senior Manager in 2017, he continues in that role following the acquisition of Allergan.

FastFive Interview

Jill Joy Rankin, C.P.M. Global Category Manager, is part of a Global Sourcing Team at Boehringer Ingelheim, whose corporate offices are based in Ingelheim, Germany. Jill is based out of Ridgefield Connecticut and is currently responsible for Global Sourcing initiatives for domestic and international programs. She has extensive leadership and cross functional experience across Sourcing and Procurement for more than 20 years. She currently supports Global Sourcing categories which includes Contract Sales, Meetings, Congresses, Sales Training, and Print management at BI leading Cross Functional and Cross Divisional Project Teams.

Prior to Boehringer Ingelheim, Jill supported Sourcing and Procurement Categories as Associate Director at Novartis Consumer Health which included Global Category strategy management of their Marketing Services and Digital Services programs as part of their Over the Counter (OTC) Division. In addition she worked in Strategic sourcing group for Johnson and Johnson, based in New Brunswick New Jersey as part of a shared services team function supporting and leading Strategic Sourcing specific categories across three business sectors including Pharma, Consumer and Medical Devise Business units. Jill was previously based on the West Coast as part of the Purchasing team for Neutrogena supporting all Supply Chain plant site functions.

Jill has been in a Procurement function across multiple industries including Software, Health and Beauty, and worked in manufacturing leading the purchasing team for a Billion dollar Global Corporation in the Food industry as well as experience working for Wella Corporation running the Purchasing function for their West Coast division. She is a Lifetime Certified Purchasing Manager and Green Belt for Six Sigma and has a vast knowledge across many industries which lends to her success and leadership in Procurement roles and expertise initiating new processes, approach and innovation to this field with both her internal stakeholders and Suppliers.

Christian-Claus Roth has been employed at Novartis Pharma since 2001, in different roles of increasing responsibility. After his studies in Business Administration he started his career with the International Pharmaceutical wholesaler GEHE Pharma Handel GmbH and later Celesio AG, in Germany.

From there he moved to the Novartis Pharma affiliate in Berne, Switzerland, where he set up the congress & event department for the Swiss market, shortly later being promoted to the Global Headquarter in Basel with responsibility for the Pain and Urology Areas as International Congress Manager, with additional responsibility later for the Bone area.

Christian now oversees the strategic global Congress & Conventions team focusing on the impact of external regulatory requirements on global medical event management – one of several key areas for which the team is responsible. Additionally he regularly participates as a panel member and speaker at conferences.

Debi Scholar is a coach and mentor in Strategic Meetings Management and Virtual / Hybrid meetings and volunteers her time to help corporations, associations, and suppliers. She was a Meetings Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers, American Express, and owned her own consultancy, Scholar Consulting Group. In 2013, she accepted the role of Global Leader and Director in Meetings & Events at a major pharmaceutical company working in the Global Strategic Sourcing group.

Debi has authored four books on meetings and events was named one of the Top 25 Women in the Meetings Industry in 2015 and 2016 by Meetings and Conventions Magazine, one of the 25 Most Influential People in the Meetings Industry in 2013 by Successful Meetings Magazine, was the co-chair of the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) Groups & Meetings Committee, a GBTA Foundation Board Member, named a “Mover and Shaker” of the industry by Corporate & Incentive Travel Magazine, was named a Top 20 Changemaker by Corporate Meetings & Incentives Magazine, and a “Best Meeting Practitioner” by Business Travel News.

Debi has achieved 9 designations, including Global Leadership Professional from Wharton, Certificate in Meetings Management, Certified Meeting Professional, Global Travel Professional, and Digital Event Strategist.

Kelly is currently an Academy Senior Program Manager at Aesculap, Inc. where she manages Surgeon Training Education Courses and Corporate Meetings. Starting her career in the meeting industry over 25 years ago, she began working for the Merrill Lynch Conference and Training Center Hotel before moving into the healthcare industry where she worked for Merck & Company, Aventis Pharmaceuticals and as an Independent Meeting Planner freelancing for a number of medical education agencies and pharmaceutical companies.

After attending Widener University for Hospitality Administration, Kelly became a Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) in 1999 and received her Certificate in Meeting Management (CMM) and Healthcare Meeting Compliance Certificate (HMCC) in 2013.

An active member of the Philadelphia Chapter of Meeting Professionals International (MPI), Kelly recently served as the Committee Chair for the chapter’s Education Institute Day and was the recipient of the Shining Star Award and the 2015 Volunteer of the Year Award.

Outside of work, Kelly enjoys spending time with her husband and two daughter’s and during the Summer and Fall months, serves as the Assistant Director and Visual Instructor for the Council Rock High School North Marching Band.

FastFive Interview

Cerstin leads the dedicated global Healthcare Practice across MCI. A highly skilled meetings and events professional, Cerstin’s career has spanned 30+ years in the meeting industry. With 19 years specializing in the Healthcare sector, she has assisted many leading global pharmaceutical companies in their quest to find the right solution to maximise the impact of their face-to-face engagements.

Originating from a Hotel Management background, Cerstin’s finely honed skills include a broad mix of HR, Sales & Marketing, Accommodation and Food & Beverage Management. Joining MCI in 1995, Cerstin began in the Destination Management field where she managed accounts for corporate clients across a wide range of industry sectors. In 1999, Cerstin established the inaugural Healthcare Practice in MCI, serving global, regional and local companies in the healthcare and life sciences industries. Cerstin’s comprehensive knowledge of these industries led to her nomination as Subject Matter Expert for the MCI Institute (MCI’s in-house training facility). Cerstin regularly shares her knowledge on issues affecting the Healthcare industry, such as compliance, through training sessions and thought leadership engagements.

Cerstin is Global Account Director for several Pharmaceutical Clients where she also heads up the implementation process for SMM programmes.