San Jose is repositioning its convention and meetings sales strategy with the addition of a national sales manager in the West Coast Corporate Market.
San Jose has shifted its sales deployment in anticipation of the completion of the San Jose Convention Center expansion and renovation project. The project was given approval to move forward in April 2011 and will add 125,000 flexible square feet, bringing the Convention Center new total to 550,000 square feet and will debut in Fall 2013.
“The addition of Wendy Frank to the San Jose sales team is the right ingredient for success as San Jose looks to capture more business and prepare for a new renovated and expanded Convention Center,” said Bill Sherry, Team San Jose CEO.
Wendy Frank has joined Team San Jose as the newest member of the sales force. As national sales manager, Frank will lead the corporate market sales efforts on the West Coast, partnering with Kimberly Mladnik, also a national sales manager, who will continue to support the corporate market within Silicon Valley. This is a new position for Team San Jose, and Frank will be located in a satellite office based out of Arizona. Frank joins San Jose with more than 15 years of sales experience, most recently as a national sales manager at Hilton Scottsdale Resort & Villas and Doubletree Paradise Valley Resort. Frank also has sales experience with Wyndham Buttes Resort and Doubletree Paradise Valley Resort, both in Arizona.
“This is an exciting time for San Jose and our new sales force is exactly what we need to compete in an ever increasingly competitive marketplace,” said Diana Ponton, Team San Jose’s vice president of sales and marketing.
The new addition of Frank compliments a seasoned team of sales leadership in San Jose lead by Diana Ponton, vice president of sales and marketing. New leadership to the team includes recent hire Mark McMinn, San Jose’s new director of sales and a recent promotion of seasoned veteran associate director of sales, Cheryl Little. Ponton, McMinn and Little bring over 65 years of sales experience to San Jose combined. These leadership changes in addition to the recent hires of Troy Karnoff as director of midwest sales, leading the satellite office in Chicago, and Kathryn Morgan as senior national sales manager for the Eastern and Mid-Atlantic region provides the right focus in new and existing markets to strategically position San Jose for a renovated and expanded Convention Center.
In April 2011, the City of San Jose and Team San Jose officially announced plans to move forward with a $120 million Convention Center expansion and renovation project for the San Jose Convention Center. The Convention Center will remain open throughout the project with the newly remodeled and expanded Center to debut Fall 2013.
