By Ivonne Ledesma

In celebration of U.S. National Volunteer Week and Global Volunteer Month, Ivonne Ledesma (MPI Ecuador Club), CEO at Ecuaultimate, shares her experience and view of volunteering with MPI.

Four years ago, I made the decision to start embracing new challenges within the great MPI family. Day by day, I was learning about the great job MPI was doing for their members and that motivated me to be first a volunteer with the MPI Ecuador Club.

A seed that was being born with force

Working close with other colleagues, in a short time, we grew and became a club within the structure of the association. The more I learned about MPI and its community, the more I was captivated by the actions and the labor that professionals throughout Latin America and at MPI Global were developing to strengthen MPI and MPI in Latin America into one of the best associations for all in the MICE industry.

I applied as a volunteer member on MPI’s Latin America Advisory Council, something I viewed as an extraordinary opportunity to learn and share the LATAM MICE reality among our partners, to build, propose and develop strategies that can contribute to the regional and global MICE market. Nowadays, the LATAM region is the fastest growing for the association. That makes me feel proud and very thankful for the fantastic work done by our leaders in Mexico, Colombia and beyond—always supporting the region.

Volunteering with MPI provides a wide world of experience and connections. My volunteer efforts with the MPI Foundation also gave me a better understanding of the things that we can do working as a team in benefit of others.

My lived experience as a volunteer for MPI as well as the MPI Foundation has been amazing—it has provided first-hand professional lessons and, most importantly, knowledge on how to work better and be better for my community and myself. This is ongoing inspiration and forces you to be active and think about what else you need to improve to achieve your goals and challenges.

One of the main purposes of volunteering with MPI is that you work with people and for the people of the industry. In this journey, you make friends, not only business partners. With MPI, you have a real network of colleagues that become friends, who help to make your business more successful. Business relations develop with total respect and confidence so you can be sure that on the other side you have someone to support your business in a professional way.

Beyond all of what I have mentioned, I want to invite all professionals of this enchanted industry to join the MPI community—and for those who are already MPI members, I urge you to volunteer in any role in which you’re passionate. When we meet, we change the world!