Working at CEB | Career Tracks | Current Openings | Campus Recruiting | FAQs

Meetings

The Meetings Department develops and coordinates all of CEB's in-house and off-site member meetings, including meetings hosted at member sites (totaling 450+ events in 2005). In addition, the Meetings Department provides support for all member teleconferences.

We organize meetings that bring together members and prospective members for executive education and networking opportunities in-house and at off-site locations, or via teleconference or videoconference. Our goal is to create a tangible experience for the member that drives firm growth through increased renewals.

To each program, we serve as a partner in all phases of event planning, from series development to execution to follow-up. We are invested in continuous process and product improvement through internal and member feedback.

For the firm, we strive to deliver a seamless meeting experience to our members, which fosters learning and idea sharing, and ultimately increases the value members receive from their membership.

Who’s Who in the Meetings Department

The Senior Director of the Meetings Department oversees the master meeting schedule and workflow of the department, and collaborates with senior management to monitor meeting performance and seek continual meeting improvements across the firm.

The Contract Manager is responsible for scheduling and contracting all CEB meetings. Each year the Contract Manager will partner with programs to select dates and locations for the upcoming series, as well as one-time topic roundtables, guru meetings, and member-hosted forums.

Once contracts have been signed, the Meeting Managers partner with programs to plan, develop, and execute their meeting or meeting series from invitation development to meeting execution and follow-up. Meeting Managers will develop staff plans, oversee meeting binder production, and coordinate all meeting logistics.

Teleconference Coordinators are responsible for planning and organizing teleconferences across all CEB programs, including teleconference registrations and confirmations, setting up the call with our teleconference vendors and providing pre- and post-teleconference support to programs.

Meeting Coordinators are responsible for capacity management, attendee registration and communication, registration reporting and analysis, and serving as a department liaison to Member Services and Marketing communicating relevant registration information. Meeting Coordinators will work with dedicated programs during a meeting series.

Administrative Associates are responsible for processing all meeting and teleconference registrations, receiving all incoming calls to the Meetings and Teleconference phone lines, and assisting members with requests for information. Members will always reach a live Meetings Department staff member from 8:30 to 5:30 each business day when calling the Meetings or Teleconference phone lines.

The UK Meetings Department includes an Administrative Associate, as well as a Meeting Manager that organizes and oversees the meetings held at our offices in London. The UK Meetings team provides support for planning and executing meetings throughout Europe and South Africa.

A Week in the Life of a Meeting Manager

Monday

I check my voice mail to find that I have three messages of scores announcements from managers who were traveling back from meetings held on Friday. I next check my e-mail. It’s relatively light with a couple of messages from our meeting manager in the UK office about an upcoming meeting in Paris, and a few messages from member-hosted forum contacts.

Around 9:00 a.m. it’s time for our monthly "Meeting of the Minds" department meeting. It is a fast-paced symphony of updates, departmental news, and cross-training opportunities. Monday is also the day I have pull-ups with my direct reports. We talk about what’s going on in their day-to-day world, any special projects they are working on, and how I can facilitate their individual development plan.

Realizing that I am leaving for a meeting on Wednesday, there is a laundry list of things to cover before heading out the door. These include tracking all of our materials shipments to ensure they have arrived at the meeting site, guaranteeing numbers with our catering and restaurant vendors, proofing all meeting documents, and communicating logistics to staff.

Tuesday

I know there is the emergency preparedness project in-store for me that needs to be completed. However, upon checking my voice mail, I receive an urgent message from the meeting manager handling the in-house meeting downstairs that the A/V company hasn’t showed up and that there are a number of issues with the system.

I rush downstairs, grab someone from our Support Services team and go to the A/V closet to begin tweaking with the sound. Fortunately the meeting isn’t supposed to start until 9:00 a.m., so we have a bit of room to wiggle. At the same time, one of our Administrative Associates puts a call in to the A/V company regarding the whereabouts of our technician. Along with my Support Services counterpart, we set up the simulcast, initiate the video and audio recording of the session, do sound checks in the classroom, prepare the speaker with the lavaliere microphones, and finally sit down to monitor a bit of the meeting.

Support Services offers to finish up the monitoring for me, and I head back up to the 7th floor to do a bit of investigating on why the technician didn’t show up. It’s now about 3:00 p.m., A/V issue resolved, and I still have the emergency preparedness project to followup on along with a number of e-mails that I received in the meantime.

Wednesday

Today I am flying out to Chicago for a Business Leadership Forum meeting. Prior to leaving the office, there are a number of "to-do’s." I proof all of our attendee and staff name tags and name tents, the attendee list, staff list, and any last-minute changes to the binder. In addition, I get a burned copy of the binder and on-screen presentation from CSG and store it to my laptop. The Meetings Coordinator and Administrative Associate teams prepare me with all my necessary materials, and lastly they give me my report which reflects the most recent pull of attendees from our member database.

Upon arrival to Chicago, I check my voice mail for any last minute cancelations or additions to the meeting. I arrive at my hotel, get to my room, check voice mail again, and finally leave a message for all the staff traveling to Chicago highlighting the logistical details for the next few days. It’s now time to do a couple of site visits to properties we are considering using for future dinners and meetings.

It’s now around 5:00 p.m. and I need to meet the Business Leadership Forum staff at the Gleacher Center for last minute binder stuffing. We insert all the new materials and go over the staffing plan for the next two days. With that done, the staff and I head over to the restaurant to prepare for the networking dinner. Upon arriving, I check the room set-up, noise level, temperature, and menu for the evening.

Dinner goes without any major incident. It’s now around 9:30 p.m. and with all the members safely on the bus, I head back to the hotel. I check my voice mail one last time, and with no new urgent messages, I go to bed realizing that I have to be up at 5:15 a.m. tomorrow.

Thursday

It’s around 6:15 a.m., and I go through premeeting motions of getting all the materials ready to set up the room, ensuring the room is set up properly, checking the sound quality of the microphones, setting out the name tags for the members, etc. Staff arrives at 7:00a.m., and we spend the next 30 minutes setting up the meeting room and wrapping up with a staff meeting.

With most of the members in the room, it’s now 8:30 a.m. and time to start. We do a final headcount. With a couple of hours before the first break, I take some time to look through the list of no-shows, call the office to see if there were any other cancelations, set out the desk materials, and do a walk-through of the lunch space. I use time during the first break to meet and greet with the members.

The meeting starts back up again, and it’s now time for me to give the final numbers of guests to the catering staff, check-in on the lunch set-up, and take care of all the requests received at the first break. The meeting breaks again, and everyone heads to lunch.

The meeting ends as a success. We calculate the assessments, and it’s a 3.8 GPA and 100% Service Excellence! Now the team and I just have a couple of clean-up activities to take care of, and it’s off the airport to catch our flight home. On the way from the airport back home I leave a voice mail announcing the scores.

Friday

First thing I do is scan all the assessments from yesterday’s meeting and post them to the Meetings Intranet. I give the post-meeting changes to the Administrative Associate team, and followup with any requests or feedback from yesterday's meeting.

At about 10:00 a.m., I have a meeting with our contacts in CSG and Print Production, in which we discuss a more effective way to communicate with the programs on binder-related issues. Out of this meeting, we also decide to plan a meet-and-greet between our three departments to help all the staff members put faces with names.

I come back to my desk around 11:30 a.m., and spend the rest of my day answering the 25 or so e-mails that have come in since the first of the morning and planning for the next two week’s schedule of meetings.

All in all a typical week as a meeting manager in the Meetings Department!

Career Tracks