Achieving Your CMM Designation Opens Doors

I recently earned my Certificate in Meeting Management (CMM) and couldn’t be prouder to have this designation alongside such a distinguished group of people in the meeting and events industry.

According to Meeting Professionals International (MPI), earning your CMM shows the world that you are a strategic thinker ready to assume a leadership role in this industry. According to a recent MPI member survey, the average salary of a meeting professional with a CMM is roughly $20K per year more than members with a CMP and nearly $30K per year more than members with no credentials.

This is a three-phased executive education program put on by Indiana University’s Kelley  School of Business and takes 15 weeks to complete. It also includes four days of in-person classes. Over the course of the in-person and online courses, you will learn about Leadership for High Performance, Communicating with Influence, Economics of Tourism, Negotiating and Managing Conflict, Budgeting and Finance, Managing Change, Sustainability, Leadership Coaching, The Value and Power of Events, Communication Intelligence and Experiential Design.

At the end of the course you will write a final project focused on solving a real-world, work-based problem. The program costs $4,400, but I received a scholarship from MPI to achieve my CMM. Scholarship opportunities can be found on their website at www.mpiweb.org and I would recommend volunteering for MPI if this is something you want to get. The qualifications to apply for the CMM are more than 7 years of professional experience in the meeting and event industry, more than 3 years of management experience and more than 2 years of profit-and-loss responsibility.

The best part of this experience was not just the learning and achieving of the certificate, but the people I met. I am thankful to call these people not only industry peers, but friends.

About the Author: Sasha Sook is the Associate Director of Sales at Summit Chicago responsible for finding unique ways to bring in new business and creative ways to expand into new opportunities. She has worked at the Summit since 2007. Her passion for the industry shows in the previous positions she has held as a Medical Event Planner, Wedding Planner and Executive Suite Manager for the Chicago Bears. Sasha was the Director of Leadership Development in 2017 on the MPI Board of Directors and served on several committees since 2012. She loves giving back to the causes that she is involved in (MPI, Special Olympics) and hopes to mentor and be that source of inspiration for new people starting out. In addition to her professional interests, Sasha is an avid traveler (worked remotely from Asia for 6 months), adventure seeker, advanced scuba diver, foodie and lifelong learner.