PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
By Phil Russo, CGA, FCAM, F.CIM, FICIA, P.Mgr., O.M.C.

It is with much pride, honour and pleasure that I found myself elected your new National President and Executive Director. The experience of serving our membership is rewarding, challenging, and time well spent. I'm very proud to be part of this Board, it's a strong, well-established team, and it's a true pleasure to work with them.

I would like to personally thank our immediate past Executive Director, Dr. Albert E. Ballantyne, for his long hours of hard work, dedication, leadership, efforts, and contributions on behalf of CICAM. Al has been on the Board for several years and is the Founder of CICAM, and I congratulate him on his many years of service and wish him the very best.

I would like to see our membership numbers grow. To accomplish this, we need to keep promoting the CICAM brand to students, professionals, and prospective employers. We must also provide more value and benefits to our members. I can assure you that your Board of Directors will continue to work hard to improve CICAM. Your Directors are very passionate and strongly believe in contributing and enhancing our professional association. I would like to personally welcome the new board, and look forward to your proactive participation, fresh ideas, and positive impact.

I can't recall a time in our history when we have faced more challenges and opportunities, and I'll do my best to ensure that the decisions we make will keep us moving towards our vision of further recognizing, strengthening, and re-branding CICAM. I know we have, and will continue to see positive changes to improve CICAM, and opportunities are still ahead of us, so we must take up the challenges.

Our newsletter, International Management Focus, will now be published quarterly on a seasonal basis, and will include several interesting, useful, and first-rate articles from well known and leading experts in their fields, and will provide true value to our members.

We will offer webinars and networking opportunities to our members. We are currently researching options, and will provide more details in the next newsletter. A CICAM event is being planned for the Fall.

We will also be increasing benefits to our members. We are proud to announce that we have organized a new benefit for CICAM, where members can attend the popular Toronto Talks seminars free of charge! This seminar series features leading keynote speakers with beneficial topics. More information is provided in this newsletter.

CICAM is celebrating its 30th Anniversary! We should all be very proud of this significant milestone. I would like to thank and congratulate all past and present members and directors who have contributed to the success of CICAM.

I would like to hear from you! Please feel free to contact me at any time, and let me know your thoughts, ideas, suggestions, and feedback regarding CICAM. I can be contacted via email at philiprusso@hotmail.com

I would like all members to promote CICAM wherever possible. Our greatest “advertising” is through word of mouth. Let’s all try to increase our membership since there is strength in numbers. Please refer any potential member to our website for membership information – www.cicam.org Lets commit to membership growth and make it a PRIORITY.

If you have not already done so, please forward your membership dues payment to the CICAM office in order to retain your professional membership.

We will be communicating more via email, so please provide your current email address to the CICAM office. The office email address is mailbox@cicam.org and the office telephone number is (416) 921-7962.

Please continuously refer to the CICAM website for upcoming news and events http://www.cicam.org

Finally, I encourage all members to communicate and support one another, as your participation is paramount to our success so we can continue to work together toward our common objectives.

Onward and Upward!

For further information contact:

Phil Russo
Executive Director
Canadian Institute of Certified Administrative Managers

Phone: (416) 921-7962
Fax: (416) 921-3959
Email: mailbox@cicam.org