Blog / Newsletter

On behalf of the President and the entire Board Members of PMI San Francisco Bay Area Chapter, we hope your Holidays were safe and relaxing.  We wish all of you a Healthy and Prosperous New Year.

With all that was going on with the pandemic and political climate, we in the 2020 PMI SFBAC chapter were resilient and stayed focused on serving the community. We were able to keep up with all the challenges and able to scale up the Annual General Meeting (AGM) even though it was totally virtual.  The AGM had the highest attendance despite the difficulties that the pandemic brought to the Chapter and all our members.  As our Chapter President, Dina Tasiou, noted, our Chapter responded swiftly to the new challenges and not only transferred all our events online but saw this as an opportunity to bring to our community international speakers offering some unique and broader topics, interaction, and learning.

The Board is proud of our Chapter CEO, Vijay Ratthinam. The Board President also stated that all the CEO accomplished in 2020 was amazing and he has led the Chapter leadership to scale up. More applications and upgrades to existing systems and processes have been introduced and completed with great results. We obtained different providers that we're able to serve the chapter to be more efficient and effective. We conducted all training online and were able to be financially stable with the stay-at-home orders. Most members are working and were able to attend the training provided by the chapter. The Operations team was able to pivot during these times from in-person networking events to online socially engaging events. We continue to average 4-6 events monthly. The International Project Management event still happened during this pandemic. Sunil Prashara, PMI President and CEO highlighted the event followed by at least five more experienced speakers. In December 2020 alone, the Chapter conducted the Round Tables, Volunteers Appreciation Day, and Holiday “DJ” virtual party free for all members and volunteers.

As Treasurer, I am happy to report that PMI SFBAC is financially sound and is able to manage spending to a minimum. Our membership is stable with an average of 3,000 members. We continue to maintain 45-60 Chapter leaders and volunteers. Our members, volunteers, volunteer leaders, speakers, and PMI Global all came together to help each other overcome countless challenges in 2020.

This has been a challenging year, but it gave us some time to reflect. Although we are socially more distant, we have taken the opportunity to be emotionally closer with those important to us. In the new year, we will keep working and adapting to a changing environment, sharing more opportunities for growth by continuing to engage and connect with our members.

I would encourage you to take some time to share ideas on how we can expand and retain you and the rest of the community in the “new normal”. Our goal is to provide value to member-owners and serve the community.

PMISFBAC Chapter wishes each and everyone to have a healthy and strong 2021 with more energy and hope for the future!

 

Zenaida Alejandrino-Navarro, Treasurer PMI San Francisco Bay Area Chapter