Welcome to Holly’s Hot Spot—your source for all the news pertaining to the ConferenceDirect LA Office!
Change is in the Air
Summer has proven to be a season of change for the ConferenceDirect LA office! We recently acquired several new additions to our staff. We’ve also begun using a new phone system, which we are very excited about. In addition, for all of our sales associates, did you know that you can now have your very own ConferenceDirect associate home page? Change makes some people scared and nervous, but never fear, I am going to outline all of the changes and what to expect!!
NEW STAFF MEMBERS
First, we have several new staff members in our office! Our happy little family is growing. The addition of these new people should make our company run even better. We’ve added a new Accounts Payable person, a financial analyst, an office clerk and an Accounts Receivable person. In addition, Brian Stevens has a new assistant!
Nick Yonkovich is from Fullerton, CA—a California native! Nick attended St. Mary’s College in Moraga, CA. He graduated this past May with a B.S. in Business Administration. Nick likes to golf in his spare time and loves pumpkin pie! Nick will be helping out on the Accounts Payable side with Jose Cardenas. He will be ensuring that all of your commission checks get processed as soon as possible!
Jesette Fortuno is originally from the Philippines! She attended the University of the Philippines and obtained a B.S. in Economics. In addition, she took several accounting classes at UCLA. Jesette loves chocolate and going to the beach. She is currently looking to move closer to our West Hollywood office and is looking at apartments near the beach, we wish her good luck in her search! Jesette is working with Brian Stevens to provide reporting and assistance on the financial forecasting side of our business.
Sylvia DeGraff is our newest team member, she is our office clerk! She is helping to assist everyone in our office, so our accounting duties can run smoothly. Sylvia attended Queensborough College in Flushing, NY. She took classes dealing with administrative duties. Sylvia has 15+ years of administrative experience and is already proving to be a valuable asset to our team. Sylvia loves Italian food and crossword puzzles!
Ryan Walsh is our newest Accounts Receivable staff member. Ryan is originally from the Philadelphia area. She attended Fordham University and has a degree in Communications, that’s why she is so good at emailing all of our associates about their commissions! Ryan is working with our associates and hotels to collect commission payments. She has really added to our receivables team and made things run a lot more smoothly!
Mitchell Drinkard is a new team member who is helping to assist our CEO, Brian Stevens. Mitchell is originally from Missouri but moved to Chicago and attended Loyola University. Mitchell has a lot of business experience and even co-owned a spa in Chicago. Mitchell recently organized a get together for the LA office, so we could all get to know each other! It was a great success and everyone had fun—Thanks Mitchell!
NEW PHONE SYSTEM IN LA OFFICE
We have new phones!! Our new phones are really great, they have caller ID, several ring tones to choose from and a lot of other cool features! In addition, we now have direct lines. Our new phone numbers are below:
Jose Cardenas (323) 302-4369
Nick Yonkovich (323)-302-5516
Ryan Walsh (323) 302-5149
Holly Driscoll (323) 302-5343
Kini Akaka (323) 302-5460
John Edwards (323) 302-5459
Cathy Brown (323) 302-5342
Frances Sarabia (323) 302-5461
Terry Wise (323) 302-5462
Don’t worry, the main line still works, and we can be reached via that number as well!
NEW EMAIL SIGNATURE LINES
We are also rolling out new signatures this week. Your signature should follow the below sample:
Catherine A. Brown, CAE
Executive Vice President
ConferenceDirect®
PO Box 69777
Los Angeles, CA 90069
phone: 425-703-5980
fax: 425-936-7329
cell: 310-977-7876
www.conferencedirect.com
Twitter: ConferencDirect | Facebook: ConferenceDirect, LLC
LinkedIn: ConferenceDirect Team
The new signatures will contain all of the new social media outlets that John Edwards has been managing. If I do say so myself, John has done a great job in getting ConferenceDirect up to speed with all of the social networking sites that are out there.
· We have a Facebook profile, we can be found by searching ConferenceDirect LLC or by direct link at www.facebook.com/conferencedirect . John updates the site regularly with news from our offices, or news and articles pertaining to the meeting planning and hotel industries. We enthusiastically welcome your comments! This could really prove to be a great resource for brainstorming about our business. Also, there are reminders for things like client gift deadlines, so it is helpful to check up periodically!
· We have a Twitter as well. The Twitter can help with deadline reminders as well as articles and news pertaining to our industry. We can be found at www.twitter.com/conferencdirect (Notice the “e” at the end of Conference is left out). Become a fan of us, and we will we reciprocate! We would love for you to read our news, and we also want to know what is going on with all of you wonderful meeting planners!
· Finally, we have a LinkedIn profile. This will link us all together as one unified team, even though we are located all over the country. It is a great way to network with each other for business purposes as well as to get to know each other. There have been many great discussions thus far on LinkedIn, and we hope to get more people involved! Search “ConferenceDirect Team” to find us!
ASSOCIATE WEB PAGES
· Associates can now have their own ConferenceDirect web page! This can help clients get in touch with you and learn a little bit about who you are. In addition, we can get to know each other better through these sites as well. Here is Frances Sarabia’s associate webpage to use as an example: www.conferencedirect.com/francessarabia. We are asking that all associates submit their information to Magdalena Beneito by September 1st! You can view Frances’ site for a blueprint for what you need to tell her. Basically, we just need your contact info and a little bit about who you are and your background in meeting planning and/or the hotel industry! We will take it from there and have our outside, professional website person do the rest! I am personally excited to get to see and read about all of the people I work with on a daily basis but have never met in real life!
See! Change isn’t so bad, is it? I think that all of these new additions and changes are going to make us an even better company than we already are! Until next time… !
Holly Driscoll ConferenceDirect Corporate Office, Greater Los Angeles
-
la-crepe liked this
-
conferencedirect posted this
