Betsy Bondurant, CMM, CTE, president of Bondurant Consulting and head of U.S. operations for 3Sixty Event Consulting, passed away on October 15 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

A 1988 graduate of the University of Nevada—Las Vegas with a major in hotel administration, Bondurant moved from hotel sales to the planner side in 1992. During her 15-year tenure as director of meetings and trade shows at Amgen, then the world’s largest biotech company, she built and implemented a pioneering organization-wide strategic meetings management program. Her framework allowed the staff of 16 planners to better track, negotiate, execute, and assess the firm’s 650 meetings and its participation in nearly 100 trade shows each year.

In 2007, Bondurant moved into niche consulting, dedicated to providing unbiased appraisals of and recommendations for SMM programs, including many within Fortune 500 firms.

Bondurant has long been considered a top expert on SMM programs and wrote many articles for

MeetingsNet to educate planners at companies of all sizes on how to build and maintain their programs. The task involves a lot of work—from getting buy-in from management, to capturing event requests and details across an organization, to analyzing the data so that preferred suppliers are used as often as possible and at favorable pricing terms.

Bondurant told MeetingsNet some years ago that maintaining program compliance across an organization was the trickiest element of strategic meetings management. Her advice: Explain the program’s organizational benefits to ad-hoc planners in every department and use training and positive reinforcement on a regular basis—but then hold policy violators accountable in a non-confrontational manner.

Below is a sampling of articles Bondurant wrote for MeetingsNet that demonstrate the granular knowledge and expertise she provided the meetings industry. For a complete list, click here.

A Vocabulary Lesson for SMM Newbies

20 SMM Results that Justify the Effort

4 Ways Procurement Pros Can Sharpen Your Meetings Management Program

SMMP: Connecting with the C-Suite

How to Manage the Naysayers, Foot-Draggers, and Critics

Beyond Sourcing and Compliance: SMM Process Improvement

3 Components of an SMM Assessment

Run These 10 Reports to Validate Your Meetings Management Program

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Remembering an Impactful Meetings-Industry Educator