22-23 President's Speech

Brandon Crumpton delivered the following speech at the July 2022 Chapter Meeting. 

Good morning everyone. I hope everyone enjoyed their time together yesterday at the Welcome Reception last night. I really enjoyed talking with you and hearing your ideas. Thank you to The Rizzo Center for hosting our first fiscal year meeting.

For those of you who may not know me, my name is Brandon Crumpton and I am the owner and President of Key Signature Entertainment and your new MPI Carolinas President. I am excited to take this position and work with this energized and motivated board of directors. I’ve been asked to share my vision for this upcoming year and the future of MPI Carolinas with you. Some of the board members have already heard what I’m about to say so I apologize for you having to hear it twice. Before I talk about where we’re going I’d like to share with you where I’ve been.

Before joining MPI Carolinas I served on the ILEA Charlotte board of directors for 9 years. I am technically the first President of the ILEA Charlotte Chapter since that was during the name change from ISES. (you can understand the name change) During that time I had started my own company and was feeling my way around in the dark trying to get this thing that I just built to grow. I honestly had know I idea what I was doing other than knowing I was good at a certain set of skills. Those skills were being present and making friends. People like to do business with people they know and trust. But that can only get you so far. I am a firm believer in always continuing to educate yourself. Even as a business owner I would sign up for every course or learning opportunity offered to me. I completed the Emerging Leaders program through the SBA in 2018. In 2019 I completed the Inclusive Procurement Training Program through Johnson C Smith. In 2021 I completed the 10,000 Small Business Program through Goldman Sachs and Babson College. I absorbed every piece of information I could expose myself to push my company forward and share what I know with my professional community.

What became abundantly clear to me is that you can have the perfect plan in place and have all of the knowledge and skill to achieve your goals. The one wild card in every plan is the people. No matter what you try to predict….you can’t predict what people will do or how they feel. I’m sure over these last few years you’ve all seen a different side to people. Probably people you know. Probably have seen people do and say things you didn’t think they were capable of. None of us are in a particular business of anything. We are all in the business of people. Without the people our plans and our ideas don’t work.

So….with all of that being said, my focus and vision for this year is all about you. I was excited to see that we have a 50/50 meeting planner/supplier ratio for this meeting. Its something we’ve been striving to achieve for years. It looks like we’re kicking things off in the right direction. My vision is to steer our chapter to being the community to join for education, networking, and support.  My vision is to work with our board members and analyze what has worked in the past and bring it with us to the future. Some things you don’t have to fix if they aren’t broken. My vision is to work with our membership and hear your ideas on how to be more engaging and the best ways for you to receive communication. Then my next question will be what committee would you like to join!?! My vision is to develop a community and culture that is welcoming, inclusive, and fun! I would hope to see everyone look forward to the next MPI Carolinas meeting and be excited to tell others. My vision is for you all of you to be ambassadors for the success and growth of this organization. I can tell you a lot of time, effort, and sanity has been poured into this chapter the past couple of years. Now its time for everyone else to join in and keep pushing us to be the best organization to be a part of no question!

MPI Carolinas is a big ship. So as captain for the next 12 months I’m going to try and start turning us in a direction that we’re all excited to go in. Keep in mind that big ships don’t turn that easily. If I can start pointing us in the direction that our board and President-Elect want to go in, then I’ve done my job. I just want to pass on something that has momentum and excitement so that our next president Najauna White can take the baton and run and not have to go back to the start line with a brand new set of ideas.

A part of being a leader is sometimes putting your own ideas aside and supporting those who support you. I’m sure you all have experienced a change in leadership and the new leader has a whole new set of ideas they want to implement. Then the next leader wants to do the same thing. Next thing you know you’re in a canoe going in circles. My vision is for us not to do that. Lets just pick a direction and go forward with whatever is best for the chapter, the industry, and for you. And lets have a little fun while we’re doing it. My name is Brandon Crumpton and I’m your MPI Carolinas Chapter President.