“What’s Your Pitch?” What Our Vetted Research Is Teaching Us About CEO Transitions

Sarah Timm, CAE, CMP-HC, Parthenon Management Group, AMCI Board Chair 

When Joy Davis, CAE, began searching for an AMC to manage the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS), she didn’t hand firms a checklist. She told them what AAPS needed: control over its science, and as much administration as possible moved to the AMC to strengthen its financial position. Then she asked, “What’s your pitch?” That question sits at the center of the work AMCI has been doing this year with Vetted Solutions, and it is one every one of our firms should be ready to answer.

Register Now: Listen, Act, Share: Using AI to Turn Member Insights Into Action Across Your AMC

Registration is now open for AMCI’s next EduSeries session, Listen, Act, Share: Using AI to Turn Member Insights Into Action Across Your AMC. Join us on Wednesday, October 28, at 2:00 PM ET for a one-hour session led by Layla Masri of Higher Logic. 

Members tell you what they need through the questions they ask, the conversations they join, and the feedback they share. For association management companies serving multiple clients, those insights can be easy to miss, and valuable lessons can stay with just one account team.

Northeast Greek Leadership Association Selects Barcami Lane as New Association Management Partner to Power Strategic Growth

Boxborough, Mass. — The Northeast Greek Leadership Association (NGLA) has selected Barcami Lane, Inc., an AMC Institute-accredited association management company, as its new management partner effective immediately. The engagement positions Barcami Lane to lead core operational, governance, and financial infrastructure in direct support of NGLA’s new strategic plan, ensuring long-term sustainability and elevated programmatic impact across the fraternal community.

The partnership represents a key win under Barcami Lane’s refreshed business acquisition and client engagement framework, spearheaded by Vice President of Client Management Tracy Schorle. Schorle, who joined Barcami Lane’s executive leadership team in June 2026.

Growing the AMC industry starts with making sure the right people know what an AMC can do for them. In this feature, Jeanne Sheehy, AMCI’s Strategic Plan Market Development domain lead, shares how AMCI is telling the AMC story to association executives and volunteer boards in support of the 50 by 2050 goal. Learn how audience research and an always-on marketing ecosystem are helping AMCI reach more association leaders every year, and how new resources like the Digital Marketing Toolkit and ACE, AMCI’s AI agent, put that work directly in the hands of AMC firms. 

AMPED’s Chris Caple Honored with WSAE Association Leadership Award 

MADISON, WI. – AMPED Association Management is proud to announce that Chris Caple, Director of Sourcing and Meetings, has been named the recipient of the Wisconsin Society of Association Executives (WSAE) 2026 Association Leadership Award. 

The Association Leadership Award recognizes an individual who demonstrates exceptional leadership within their association, profession or the broader association community while exemplifying WSAE’s values of inclusion, integrity, passion and innovation. 

Stephanie Lowney Named WSAE Young Professional Award Recipient

Menomonee Falls, WI – Stephanie Lowney, Membership, Marketing and Programs Manager at Association Acumen, has been named as the 2026 recipient of the Wisconsin Society of Association Executives (WSAE) Young Professional Award.

“I’m honored to receive the WSAE Young Professional of the Year Award. I’m grateful for the mentors, colleagues, and opportunities that have helped shape my career and growth in the association community," Stephanie said.

Connections, Communication, and Purpose at the AMCI Regional Meeting

Carolyn Lagermasini, CAE, President, Association & Conference Group, AMCI Board Director

Attending the recent AMC Institute Regional Meeting in Atlanta, GA, was a valuable and energizing experience for the Association & Conference Group team. The intimacy of the regional setting provided an exceptional environment for deeper engagement, thoughtful reflection, and meaningful connection with peers across the association management industry. Throughout the event, two key themes surfaced across sessions: the power of self-aware communication and the fundamental truth that association management is, above all, a people business.

Alone We Can Do So Little: Why Your AMCI Membership Is Worth Renewing

"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much." – Helen Keller

Sarah Timm, Board Chair, AMC Institute, and Parthenon Management Group

Last Call: Share Your Expertise at AMCI Annual 2027

The next AMCI Annual Meeting is taking shape, and we want your expertise on the program. This is your final chance to get involved. Submissions close tomorrow, October 2, 2026, so there is still time to share your ideas. Whether you are a seasoned expert or an emerging executive, there is a place for your voice here, and we want you to be part of it.

What We're Looking For:

Sessions that are interactive, collaborative, and focused on real-world solutions. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

To every firm that has already registered for the November 2 Sector Outlook Session: thank you. You've secured your place at the table for a conversation that will shape where our sector goes next, and we're looking forward to seeing you in the room.

If your firm hasn't registered yet, don't be left out.

John R. Waxman, Former President of The Sherwood Group and Lifelong Association Professional, Dies at 75

John R. Waxman, a lifelong association professional and former president of The Sherwood Group, passed away peacefully on September 27, 2026. He was 75.

John joined Organization Management Systems Inc. (OMSI) in 1986 as an account executive, bringing substantial association management experience to the company. He advanced to general manager and vice president before becoming its second president in 1990. Over the next quarter century, he helped guide dozens of nonprofit organizations and supported the professional growth of hundreds of staff members and volunteer leaders.

The AMCI Learning Center Is Here

See Where Your AMC Career Can Take You 

There's no single path in the AMC model. Whether you're learning about it for the first time, deepening your expertise in a specialty, preparing for greater client-facing responsibility, or setting your sights on the C-suite, the AMCI Learning Center is your new home to help you get there — starting today.

What's Inside

• New AMC Career Pathways
• Certificate and Specialist Courses
• Our full library of past webinars and EduSeries

Find Your Path

New AMC Career Pathways are mapped across three stages — Foundational, Advanced, and Mastery —- so you can see exactly where your experience leads:

Built By Volunteers: The Real Story Behind Everything AMCI Offers

We just closed our annual Call for Volunteers and it has me thinking about something I need to say even more often: almost everything AMCI does well, we do because a member raised a hand and said, "I'll help build that."

Our volunteers are the lifeblood of this trade association. This is not a talking point; this is very true. If you look at where so much of AMCI's value comes from, you'll find a volunteer committee behind nearly all of it.

Don't Read About It Afterward — Be In the Room

Clients expect more for less.

Good people are harder to find.

Margins are under pressure.

And AI is accelerating all of it.

It isn't only that another firm gets there first. Associations themselves can now use AI to do more of the work they currently outsource to an AMC, faster, cheaper, and with fewer people involved. They'll still need AMCs. But what they need us for is going to shift, and so is what they'll pay for it.

AMCI is bringing together a small group of AMC leaders for a 90-minute Sector Outlook Session on November 2 to look at this shift head-on.

Growing the AMC industry means making sure quality grows with it. In this feature, Michael Silverman, AMCI’s Strategic Plan Quality Assurance domain lead, shares how accreditation supports that larger vision and how AMCI is investing in education, consistency and outside expertise to keep it relevant and credible as the industry grows. See how AMCI is building on the value of accreditation today while making sure it continues to carry weight for AMC firms, the associations they serve and the industry well into the future.

There's no single path in association management. You might be learning the AMC model for the first time, deepening your expertise in a functional specialty, preparing for greater client-facing responsibility, or setting your sights on the C-suite. Wherever you are in that journey, there's more than one way to grow, and this fall, AMC Institute is bringing every stage of it together in one place.

On October 1, we're launching the AMCI Learning Center: a single, easy-to-navigate hub for all of AMCI's professional development, built exclusively for professionals working within the AMC model. In one place, you'll find:

Indianapolis, IN – Raybourn Group International (RGI), Indianapolis-based association management, consulting and meeting planning firm, announces it has been selected as the association management

company and staffing solution for the International Consortium of Mohs Surgery (ICMS). ICMS is a new global professional association uniting Mohs surgeons, trainees, and allied specialists across continents
through education, research, and collaboration in the treatment of skin cancer. ICMS leadership signed the organization's founding documents in London on September 12. Nicole Brandt, CAE, HMCC, will serve as lead for ICMS. Brandt brings more than 17 years of nonprofit management experience and has spent her association management career working exclusively with medical and scientific societies, including the Noah Worcester Dermatological Society and the International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics.