Message from President Katie Schultz on What I’ve Learned & Loved By Being on the MPI PHL Board of Directors

You never know where your journey will take you.  I definitely didn’t know that when I joined MPI PHL many moons ago that I would become President of the Chapter.  I have truly enjoyed my journey and met wonderful individuals in the process.

My first leg started with the Special Events committee.  Doesn’t everyone want to join that committee and plan our awesome events!  Back then, we had an annual golf outing and I enjoyed working with my fellow volunteers learning the ins and outs of how to run an outing. 

Next up, I realized how much I loved talking about MPI and decided membership was for me.  I joined the Discover MPI committee and helped to bring our message to those not so familiar with us.  This truly was a great way to network and meet lots of new hospitality folks. 

From there, I became the Director of Leadership Development & Volunteer Recruitment (what a mouthful!) and reached out to individuals who belonged to the chapter to have them use their membership to learn new things.  Talking to members about how MPI PHL can help them in their career was exciting as people realized their untapped potential.

At that time, I knew I wanted to make our chapter provide the best of everything to our members and my climb to President began.  It started with VP of Finance so I could truly understand how to run a chapter and I learned so much:  budgets, spreadsheets, P & Ls, and all the “finance” things.  Not as hard as I thought it would be as my colleagues can tell you I always said “math is hard!”

President-Elect was next and now President for my second term.  I love reaching out to members to see how we are doing and helping the other VPs to make our programs, events and reach out successful.

I challenge you to start your journey with MPI PHL and nominate yourself to take the next step :)

https://www.mpi.org/chapters/philadelphia-area/get-involved/2021-2022-chapter-board-nominations

Katie Schultz, HMCC
President, MPI PHL