Neil Brownlee reflects on his year as PCMA’s first non-North American chair.
When Neil Brownlee, VisitScotland’s head of Business Events, became the first non-North American Chair of PCMA, he took on an ambitious agenda tied to PCMA’s 2030 vision.
It included launching a refreshed brand identity, deepening the integration of PCMA’s acquisitions, including CEMA and EMA UK, elevating Convene for Climate (C4C), introducing a new membership model, and advancing vital DEI work while exploring the potential of AI.
Neil Brownlee, head of Business Events, VisitScotland
Now, almost a year later and just weeks before he hands over the reins to incoming chair Kelly Ricker, he reflects on what has been achieved during a transformative year for the organisation.
Refreshing the PCMA brand
Brownlee describes PCMA’s soon-to-be-revealed refreshed brand identity as a “gradual re-energising of everything the organisation presents to the world”.
He hints at the creative choices that have gone into the redesign, including a colour palette of “beautiful, regal Scottish deep purples”. All will be revealed at the formal launch at PCMA’s Convening Leaders in Philadelphia in January. But what matters most to Neil is not the redesign itself, but the renewal it signals.
“Once it’s fully rolled out throughout 2026 – from Convening Leaders to the edUcon conference planned for Puerto Rico in June – it’ll provide a vibrant backdrop to an organisation celebrating its 70th anniversary,” he says proudly. “It feels like the right moment.”
Integrating acquisitions and redefining membership
When Brownlee took the chair, PCMA had a growing portfolio of acquired associations, including the US-based CEMA (Corporate Event Marketing Association) and EMA UK (the Event Marketing Association, with 800 UK-based corporate event marketers as members). Each has its own community, so the challenge was to integrate them into the PCMA family.
“Often when you acquire other businesses, you need a moment to take stock,” he says. “However, if you don’t integrate them early, they can harden into silos. This year has been about ensuring those communities feel part of the PCMA family, while preserving the distinctiveness that first made them valuable.”
Alongside this, PCMA has overhauled its membership model. Previously, the organisation had more than a dozen categories, “very dominated by specific segments,” Brownlee notes. This has now been streamlined to six broader groups, allowing people to self-select based on the primary focus of their professional work.
Support for the structural changes was canvassed during two Town Hall meetings in 2025 – a refreshingly transparent move designed to keep members engaged and informed.
A second edition of Convene for Climate
Convene for Climate (C4C) was launched in 2024 by PCMA, in partnership with the Strategic Alliance of the National Convention Bureaux of Europe (SANCBE), and Brownlee was looking forward to its return.
The second edition ran from 16–17 October in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, immediately after PCMA’s Convening EMEA conference, which had taken place in the city for two days prior.
Brownlee is proud of PCMA’s collaborative efforts to advance climate action and sustainability within the business events sector, and sees C4C as a meaningful step toward strengthening PCMA’s European footprint.
What matters greatly to him, however, is that PCMA consistently delivers content that challenges industries and global issues, not just business event logistics.
A conversation he recounts from the opening moments of C4C in Rotterdam captures this perfectly: a delegate from the tin-packaging industry explaining misconceptions about the environmental performance of aluminium versus paper cartons.
“That is the beauty of PCMA,” Brownlee says. “You meet people beyond your own sphere, discussing issues much bigger than event operations. Who knew that the recycling options for waxed cartons were far more limited than what people view as old tech or even landfill, aluminium tins?”
DEI and exploring the potential of AI
Two themes central to Brownlee’s year as PCMA chair were supporting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) across the global meetings and events community and exploring the potential of AI.
The political sensitivities associated with DEI this year have made the first theme a particular challenge. Brownlee acknowledges the shift in tone from governments worldwide, particularly in the United States, and he credits PCMA President and CEO Sheriff Karamat with expertly navigating the tightrope.
“We needed to show people we had their back,” he says, “but without putting the organisation or those exposed further in the crosshairs at a time when DEI programmes were being challenged.”
PCMA’s approach, he says, has been to stay firm in its values without making itself an easy political target.
On AI, he sees a sector that is still learning and emerging from the hype cycle. Brownlee believes the industry needs to stop talking about “AI” as a concept and start talking about specific tools and outcomes. Crucially, he warns, the narrative must be shaped by the sector itself.
“If we don’t control the narrative,” he says, “others will dictate it, the same way we were told during the pandemic that no one would ever travel or meet face to face again. It’s nonsense.”
Through a partnership with data technology expert dFakto, PCMA previewed its new AI-powered destination research platform at edUcon in June before launching it at IMEX America in October.
The ‘Destinaitor’ platform allows event strategists to compare multiple destinations based on objectives and verified data. It also includes an RFP feature that can analyse a business event strategist’s request for proposal and suggest matching destinations.
“It’s about refreshing what we do and giving people the tools to make a genuine difference,” says Brownlee.
A year on the global stage and what’s next
Brownlee’s year as PCMA chair has taken him around the world, from Singapore for Convening APAC to Colombia for the inaugural Convening LATAM.
He describes the experiences as both humbling and energising.
“I like to think of myself as a reasonably educated traveller,” he laughs, “but I needed to go to Asia Pacific to be reminded of the diversity of cultures we engage with, as a huge chunk of the delegates in Singapore were from Australia and New Zealand. Maybe it was jetlag as I had come straight from DC via London, but we Brits and Europeans need to get out more.”
There was also a deeper purpose: to show PCMA’s overwhelmingly North American membership that a non-North American chair is not an experiment.
Neil points to the succession plan. After Kelly Ricker, chief operating officer at the Global Technology Industry Association, comes Robin Preston, managing director, events at the American Institute of Architects, marking two female incoming chairs and strong continuity in global leadership.
They will be followed by Panos Tzivanidis, corporate events and services director at the International Olympic Committee, who is slated to be the first Greek chair of PCMA in 2028, the year of the Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles.
“That’s a huge statement of intent,” Brownlee says.
In 2026, as immediate past chair, Brownlee will chair PCMA’s Visionary Awards committee and lead the nominating committee responsible for selecting future board members.
“It’s a demanding role,” he admits. With 57 applications for seven board positions this year, “it shows PCMA’s health, but it’s also a lot of responsibility.”
Despite the workload, he speaks warmly about the personal development the role has brought him. “I’ve become more serious,” he says with a smile. “But in a good way.”
Brownlee will also have more time back in Scotland with the VisitScotland Business Events team that has kept the engine running while he’s been away. Scotland, he says, is performing well as the post-pandemic stabilisation period gives way to pure competition for new business.
VisitScotland’s advocacy work will also ramp up in 2026, a trend Neil believes can be simplified.
“It’s not complicated,” he says. “Ask the Government for its problems and bring the world’s experts to Scotland to solve them. When politicians understand it, they think it’s brilliant. They just get easily distracted.”
As the conversation winds down, Brownlee reflects on what it meant to represent Scotland and the UK at the top table.
“It has been a huge honour,” he concludes. “And I hope I’ve blazed a trail for others.”
