The ‘conference within a conference’, sponsored by host venue The Venetian®|The Palazzo® and Sands Meetings, will take place as part of IMEX America’s ‘Smart Monday – Powered by MPI’ – on Monday Oct. O8 - the day before the three-day trade show gets underway. This event is unique in being exclusive to association planners only. Keynote speaker, Mark Sanborn, is a member of the prestigious Speakers Roundtable, a society comprising 20 of the top speakers in the world today.  Aside from the quality of the free Association Focus event, Sanborn’s presence is already proving a strong attraction.

This year organizers, the IMEX Group, have worked with ASAE: The Center for Association Leadership, ICCA and PCMA to provide an extensive learning program for association executives keen to improve their professional skills and knowledge.  The new education program is provided free of charge and has been designed with tracks tailored to suit different levels of seniority and career development including a choice of ‘executive’, ‘global’ and ‘meetings’ track sessions throughout the day, each with content devised and delivered by one of the three partner associations.

Senior panels

For meeting planners looking to place association business internationally, the global track will offer ICCA-led sessions on “Entering new markets” and “Planning Global Meetings with a Focus on Asia.”  At the executive-level, ASAE will run a three-hour deep-dive on “Managing Through Change”.  The senior panel will comprise Robin Lokerman, CEO-Institutional Division, MCI Group; Peter O’Neil, CAE, Executive Director, American Industrial Hygiene Association; Patrizia Semprebene Buongiorno, Vice President, AIM Group International and Robert Waller, CAE, President, Association Headquarters, Inc and will be moderated by Brian Riggs, Vice President, Association Headquarters Inc. 

Within the meetings track, PCMA have devised two 1.5 hour afternoon sessions -  “The science and fun of creating effective learning”, which will be led by Kathleen Edwards, CAE and President of The Learning Evangelist and “Meetings Go Mobile” with Bob Vaez of EventMobi. ASAE’s afternoon sessions include a “Sustainability Safari” with a detailed, behind-the-scenes look at how the Venetian® manages its sustainability program to support green meetings and events. There will also be a session by Tammy Blosil, Vice President, Online Learning for ASAE: The Center for Association Leadership on “The Strategic Impact of Digital Events on Meetings.” 

Expert-led round tables

Later in the afternoon Association Focus will offer delegates a choice of over 20 different round-table discussions across all three tracks. 

Come 7pm all Association Focus buyers have the chance to attend the Association Evening reception sponsored by Sands Meetings to meet and network with exhibitors and association partners.

As Carina Bauer, CEO of the IMEX Group explains: “Following our debut event we took on board a lot of feedback from the US market - Association Focus is just one of the building blocks of IMEX America that has been redeveloped since last year to improve and enhance the show. We are really excited to be welcoming around 200 association executives to Las Vegas for this event come October 08 and are especially grateful to our sponsors – The Venetian®| The Palazzo® and Sands Meetings for making this possible.”