Dear Fellow IMA Members:

Thank you for trusting me with the honor and privilege of being your Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) Mid Atlantic Regional Council (MAC) president for the 2011-2012 year. My pledge to you is to uphold the high ethical standards of our distinguished global institute, councils, its chapters, and you, our members of the IMA. Please call, email, text, tweet, LinkedIn, FaceBook, to me any questions, ideas, and concerns you may have about anything IMA. Chances are I’m connected to whatever you use to communicate these days.

I thank Dr. Tony Curatola, immediate past MAC president, for all his support and mentoring to prepare me to lead our regional council. Thanks also to the numerous other MAC board leaders who have shared their insights, supported me over the past year, and have shown a strong willingness to help throughout this year: Thank you all!!

As noted, I am supported by an excellent council board to help you, our members, get the most out of your investment in the IMA. We do not take that investment lightly and we need to deliver to you a strong and viable resource for your professional development. Please be in touch with any of our council board members, especially council board members who are from your very own local chapter. They not only understand IMA from a global prospective, but share in your local chapter goals and challenges as well!

As an inaugural message to you, or my “State of the MAC” address, I would like to share your council’s initiatives for this coming 2011 – 2012 year:

MAC is a ready and willing resource for all chapters in our region. Collectively, we have many years of experience for the chapters to lean on for support. We are blessed with IMA Global leaders, past council presidents, and chapter presidents ready to mentor your chapter to a successful year. We see the current challenges you are facing and we want to support, and in some cases revitalize, your local IMA experience. This is a pivotal year for many chapters who face challenges in delivering the traditionally established practices of holding meetings, local professional education sessions, and providing leadership building opportunities for their chapter members. We do not have all the answers or ideas. We want to hear your ideas on what would be beneficial to you locally. IMA Global has made it very clear that we all need to find what will benefit our local members and build on those ideas. With that in mind, here are a few of the initiatives your MAC leadership is ready to provide your local chapters.

1. Professional Development (PD) conferences held each year. Already a success!
2. In-depth seminars and seminar series on current technical matters – new initiative for 2012-2013!
3. Webinar based professional educational sessions – new initiative!
4. On-line Chapter Leadership Effectiveness Workshop (CLEW) – new and posted to our MAC website!
5. CMA review course programs – renewed initiative!
6. Social “network” meeting support for chapters not holding their own local meetings – new initiative!
7. Joint (with MAC or Global IMA representative) corporate visits with local chapter representative – new initiative!
8. Your ideas* go here! – Please let us know!
9. Free training and technical tools for local chapters to use for holding virtual meetings (Web based and/or conference call) – new initiative coming this Fall!

* What has been traditional in the past may not be good enough going forward. We can become creative in response to our new world. Whether it is due to technology or changing social norms, we need your ideas on how the local IMA can best serve your professional development goals. Let’s build on your ideas together!

To further your personal professional development, we invite you to become a leader in your local chapter. Your local chapter is where you can bring what you need to see from the IMA to your hometown area. Do you desire more social events? Let’s do them! How about special corporate and plant tours – yeah, why not? Conduct joint meetings with other groups to increase your “network” of opportunities with local chambers of commerce and other professional groups. Could your local IMA chapter sponsor a local chamber education meeting on a business topic that their members should know about? Meet CEOs of local businesses by hosting a “By Invitation Only” CEO event. One suggestion: “How IFRS will affect your bottom-line?” Oh, need a speaker on such technical issues? – ASK MAC! All these and your own ideas will give any member leadership experience and professional networking opportunities right near home. Does this help you think of your own ideas? – Call me or whoever you know in IMA leadership, we want to help you!

If you missed our live Chapter Leadership Effectiveness Workshop (CLEW) please see our new CLEW tab located on the upper right menu bar above to watch and listen to our recorded presentation done on September 7th, 2011 in conjunction with two other IMA Global councils. As we are asking you to work across “traditional” boundaries so are we. Under the leadership of our past MAC president, Joanne Newfield, we organized our first joint CLEW webinar. The Metro New York and New Jersey Councils both contributed to a well attended and received CLEW. How we produced this recorded webinar and posted it to our website will all be presented in a webinar this fall so you and your chapter leadership can utilize these free tools to conduct meetings and webinars of you own. This is what MAC can do for you!

If you have been an officer of your local chapter’s board of directors, MAC invites you to join our board. Talk about professional development opportunities! You will be warmly welcomed by current CEOs, CFOs, controllers, vice presidents, college professors and other business and civic leaders from our region. We currently have openings that will allow you to take part in helping us support all the local IMA chapters and their members. Call me at 610-444-5295 and we can talk about where you would feel most comfortable in helping us help you. Together we will make a difference!

See you soon,

Bob Listerman

Bob Listerman
MAC President 2011-2012
rlisterman@btr-security.com
610-444-5295 office
484-643-0018 mobile