The new IAPCO president was unanimously elected, from immediate affect following the end of term of Philippe Fournier, the previous president.
Gonzalo Perez Constanzó, the new IAPCO president, is the managing director of Kenes Latin America, Chile. He started his career in Buenos Aires, where he worked for Congresos Internacionales S.A. for over 10 years. He joined the company as a project assistant and retired as a director. He joined the IMF/World Bank Group in 1997 as the conferences officer in their Joint Secretariat; as such, he was actively involved with the Annual Meetings of the Institutions, which are attended by over 10,000 participants.
Having been responsible for the organization of World Bank meetings in Europe and Asia, Constanzó left the World Bank in June 2008 to move to Europe to Spanish PCO company Tilesa. As of April 2011 he became managing director of Kenes Latin America in Santiago de Chile.
Constanzó has been on the IAPCO Council since February 2009 and is a member of the IAPCO Training Academy, being a frequent speaker at the Annual Seminar on his specialty of governmental meetings.
At the General Assembly in Paris, Constanzó committed himself to furthering the quality standards and educational programme for IAPCO.
“It is not by chance that IAPCO has been in existence for 44 years: There is a message to spread and a mission to accomplish,” he said. “Today, the need for education is still a priority. Services that were essential in 1968 have been replaced with new items and new technologies, implementation and best use of social media, accessible events; these were just to name a few that were analyzed at our recent Assembly in Paris. Education, training, these are words that will remain at the core of IAPCO, they are part of what we do, who we are, and what we believe should be carried out by us all.”
Nicky McGrane, managing director of Conference Partners, Dublin, was co-opted to the IAPCO Council to represent the three Irish IAPCO members, Conference Partners, Keynote PCO and MCI-Dublin, in the organization of the next Annual Meeting, which will take place in Dublin in February 2013.
All other Council Members remain on the board, as elected by the General Assembly in Paris.
