Last September I was in San Diego for the annual PMI Leadership Institute Meeting and was invited to an event for young professionals. It was a kick off cocktail party where PMI members under 35 were invited to meet one another and network. It was incredibly interesting to meet young PMI board members and discover many of the shared challenges they face. We also bonded over the novelty PMI socks and apparently common skirt lengths.
Shortly after this event, I was sent a survey to fill out with my feedback about the Emerging Professional initiatives. Tammy from PMI Buffalo NY contacted me to discuss further via Skype and amongst a flurry of ideas I found myself part of this new group.
The purpose is to provide insight into what makes Project Management a desirable career path for the next generation of graduates. So we meet over skype every couple of weeks and throw around ideas and our perspectives on the profession. I wanted to take the time in a blog post to introduce this group to everyone because they will surely be an ongoing feature of my travels as I hope to touch base with many of them along the way.
Top left to bottom right : Miguel Cotrina from PMI Cajamarca Peru Chapter, Tammy from PMI Buffalo NY Chapter, that's my pleased-to-be-here face in the middle, Ruan Almeida from PMI Minas Gerais in Brazil, and Monika Petrova originally from Bulgaria but now with PMI Pudget Sound Chapter. Jason Bilbaeno from California, sharing his perspective as a project manager in Silicon Valley, also joins us on these calls.
A truly global initiative
Due to enormous time differences, not pictured here in our skype chat are the other members of the team from around the world: Élodie Marinier from France, Pabhu Rajpurohit from India, Scott Peace from Australia, Betty Worsley from the UK and Marcel Furmie from South Africa. It is truly a global iniative to explore what motivates a young person to become a project manager.
I'm so stoked to meet them in person in July in Washington D.C., there will certainly be some adventures and some great conversations about why we are all so passionate about project management.
I'm pretty sure we are getting matching t-shirts too.
The photos are going to be epic, and hopefully highly Instagrammable.
Stay tuned because I will be visiting some of these lovely people in their hometowns and participating in their chapter events, and even staying with Mama Lili (Thanks Monika!)