Getting it all done in a 24/7 world leaves little room for getting better at what you do – but you must. Discovery and Alignment are no less important for CEOs than they are for the organizations they lead.

The role of any CEO comprises a complexity of parts and pieces, the ‘whats’ of it all, and this amid an internal dynamic that makes it all work. And for the Association CEO, it’s the balancing and bending of force and circumstance with the leaders of an industry or profession in a continuum of successes that makes for a winning organization and a fulfilling career. 

It requires an understanding of the ‘how’ of it all, the feel and the dynamics of it. Sadly, much of this cannot be taught - read up on and studied. It is largely an on-the-job training position. There is, though, much to be learned and appreciated from other Association CEOs. The trick is getting them together in the same room, talking in a common tongue, with everyone looking to share what they’ve learned - what’s worked for them and what hasn’t.

If all this rings a few bells, the Association CEO Masters Seminar is for you.

Approach

In the years of sail, shipmasters took every opportunity of a safe harbor to share their knowledge and experience with each other. Similarly, the Seminar serves as a safe harbor for Association CEOs to share their knowledge and experiences, learning from one another on how to best cope in the surging seas and rouge waves that can so mark association leadership.

The goal is to strengthen the abilities and insights of those in the Seminar while at the same time harvesting their experiences for an ever expanding body of knowledge on the elements and parameters of what it means to be an Association CEO: how to get better at it and how to be more professionally fulfilled in it. 

Most Association CEOs know more on a factual and solution-development basis than they may realize, perhaps a lot more. The Seminar is designed to draw out these facts, skills, experiences and successes so that the CEO - and the other CEO Participants - can use them. In effect, the Seminar deepens and strengthens their knowledge from what they already know, as further amplified by their discussions with the other CEOs in their Seminar session.

New Concepts

The Seminar introduces a number of new and unique concepts on the Association CEO’s role and responsibilities, including: The Rule of Tiers, The Rule of the Two Authorities, the Zone of Complexity, the Management/Leadership Continuum, the CEO Tenure Dynamic, Communicativity, and the Core Grounding of the Board/CEO Partnership. Seminar content also includes original articles on Change, Leadership, Leadership Keys as well as The Board/CEO Partnership: Foundation of Association Leadership.

8:30   Gathering – Coffee, juice and pastry

8:45   Welcome and Introductions

9:00  Element I: Change and Leadership          

Element II: Commonalities of the Association CEO Experience

Element III: Association Fundamentals

12:00 Lunch –

1:00 Element IV: Association Deliverables

Element V: Association CEO Responsibilities

Element VI: Board/CEO Partnership

2:30  Professional Core

3:00   Tutorial: Post-session Workbook

Association Fundamentals Positioning Workshop

3:30    Evaluation and Close

ACMS Program - Annotated

Paul Belford

Seminar Director

Paul Belford has successfully completed more than three hundred association searches, mostly at the CEO level. A professional search consultant since 1990, Paul joined JDG Associates as head of its Association Practice in 1993. His clients have ranged in size from regional and state groups with staffs of ten or fewer to national organizations with budgets up to $75 million.

Author of Planning Your Career in Association Management, published by the American Society of Association Executives in 2002, Paul has spoken on career-development at ASAE meetings and those of its Allied Societies. In 2013 he published The Association CEO Handbook, which was the well-spring for the Seminar. A Second Edition of the Handbook was published in 2019. (www.associationceohandbook.com).

Prior to executive search, Paul spent eleven years with PhRMA, a major Washington, D.C-based trade association, where he was responsible for international issues management. He also worked as an International Economist in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for International Affairs at the Treasury Department. 

An Accounting graduate of Boston College, Paul has an M.A. in Economics from Fordham University.