The Year 2018 is already here and facing the new mandate as IPMA President picking up the torch from my predecessors, especially that of Reinhard Wagner,  I would like to provide you with some important and meaningful information having an impact on what we will do in the forthcoming months and new three  years mandate.

Twenty-one years have passed since I found IPMA through my  National Association AEIPRO-IPMA Spain (1996), specially active in IPMA since 2005, and during that time I had the fortune and honor to perform in practically all the IPMA remits ,  National Delegate,  CVMB Validator, International Assessor, UE Task Force member, E&T board member, LACC Project and Program Manager and during latest 5 years as Vice President  for Education and Training, Young Crew and Membership as well. At this point my thanks go to all those people who trusted and trust me, and also a recognition for those with which I disagree and constructively argue because, thanks to the discussion, alternatives are generated and perspectives and options are enriched. I define myself as an entrepreneur, a practitioner and a devout evangelizer of our profession: the portfolio, program and project management, during 30 years of experience I have been fortunate to enrich myself with many lessons from many peoples in the Five Continents, across  more than 70 Nations Worldwide, many of them in the America’s but not only as well in Europe, Africa and Eastern Asia.

We are evangelizers

The first time I heard the term  “evangelization” applied to marketing (and latter to the people and talent  management as well) was reading Guy Takeo  Kawasaky , especially two of his words: “Selling the Dream (1992- ISBN 0-88730-600-4” and “The Art of the Start (2004- ISBN 1-59184-056-2)”, but undoubtedly one of his best descriptions is the 2015 edition of the Harvard Business Review entitled “The Art of Evangelism” there he says: “If you’re a leader, you should evangelize for your organization and what it has to offer, and you should feel comfortable playing this role both internally—in break rooms, over e-mail, through collaborative platforms—and externally, at industry conferences and via LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. In the social age, evangelism is everyone’s job. When you become an effective evangelist, you set an example for others….”.

We must “evangelize” IPMA Worldwide because when all of us become  effective IPMA evangelists, we don’t just promote IPMA, we show that we are  passionate peoples and engaged team members, we can inspire our colleagues (and beyond those), demonstrating our leadership abilities as basic competence for the success . I ask you all in this just started New Year to take a look around yourself , your Teams and MA’s  and probably you’ll see evangelists everywhere,  and once again this is the main pillar of our Global Standards : we should develop the competences that we need to join the club of “IPMA Evangelizers” because that will help us during the next years with a new IPMA approach.

New IPMA approach

Based on IPMA’s Vision and Strategy 2020 review (heading towards 2025) ExBo works in that review that will share after first ExBo meeting for the new mandate that will take place this month of  January from 25th to 27th. This decisions will  lead to a new way of doing, much closer and focusing on the needs of our MAs because they are, you are the only IPMA Heritage, having an impact in the  new IPMA Ecosystem looking for a sustainable and professional future, reinforcing our global networking and mutual cooperation.

New IPMA relationship with our main heritage

As you may notice we have already done our best to get even more closer to MA’s. We want to do much more than this and our plans are to expand our relationship in the near future by assigning KAM’s to our MA’s and regions – addressing much more personal and customized assistance based on coaching and mentoring.

Each MA and Region will be assigned to one of the ExBo member in order to expand our communication and cooperation abilities even more.

After latest IPMA Council of Delegates, we worked hard to develop our potential for the future and establish new paths for collaboration. In this New Year just started  we will be embarking on an ambitious plan to support collaboration through new ways of communication and sales support. This will be an extension of all our initiatives and will help us maximize the opportunities. We hope that you will all contribute to our common success. Now, we want to take a moment to thank you for everything you do ! . Your continued and future dedication and hard work is appreciated and recognized indeed.

I would like to take the occasion to thank all the outgoing VP’s , President and  CoD Chairperson for their invaluable contributions during the latest  three years. Now let’s altogether focus on what needs to be done evangelizing more , with passion and devote dedication helping  all of us and our profession to be successful based on IPMA’s Vision: promoting competence throughout Society to enable a World in which all projects succeed!.

I want to wish you a healthy, inspiring and joyful  New Year 2018 full of challenging and successful projects.