Neil Brownlee became the first non-North American chair of PCMA in January 2025. He sits down with Mike Fletcher to discuss both his new role and his 16 years of experience championing business events in Scotland.
Congratulations on becoming the first non-North American chair of PCMA
Thank you. PCMA is approaching its 70th anniversary in 2026 and it has never had a non-North American chair before. So I’m the first and that has come off the back of all the work that PCMA is doing in regions outside of the US including EMEA, APAC and LATAM. It’s perfect timing therefore to have a chair that is from another culture, albeit an English-speaking one. It is a huge honour for me personally, and I do not take it lightly.
When did your relationship with PCMA start?
My first engagement with PCMA was in 2011 when I went to Convening Leaders in Las Vegas. I then hosted several global summits in Scotland during 2012 and 2015. I got onto the Board in 2018 until 2022 and then came back in 2023 as Secretary-Treasurer.
My year as Chair-elect last year was perhaps the trickiest as you feel that everyone else is doing all the work and you’re just there, watching and absorbing but feeling rather guilty that you’re not getting stuck in. That will all change now.
What does the role of PCMA chair involve?
It is to collaborate with PCMA’s 18 Board Directors and the team, led by Sheriff Karamat to drive PCMA’s strategic vision forward.
It’s a one-year position. A lot of what I want to do in 2025 will build upon the tremendous work of Leonard [Hoops, PCMA’s 2024 board chair] and the previous boards and previous leaderships under Desirée [Knight, PCMA’s 2023 board chair], and Charles [Starks, PCMA’s 2022 board chair].
As usual, PCMA has a strong strategic direction, and its 2030 vision is what I want to build upon. Major priorities in my year will be rolling out a new branding; further integration of PCMA’s recent acquisitions such as CEMA, EMA UK and ELI; the return of Convene for Climate; a new membership model and critical work and developments in DEI and AI.
One of the things I’ll be particularly focused on is reassuring the North American chapter-based membership that I’m their chair. I’m not the UK, EMEA or Scotland’s chair. I’m the chair of the entire organisation. I will represent everyone’s interests, cultures and ways of working to transform societies and economies through business events.
To make the world a better place through business events is PCMA’s mantra isn’t it?
Yes, and it plays very well in my home country of Scotland.
As Head of Business Events for Visit Scotland, I see PCMA’s messaging cut through with the Scottish Government. Cities like Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh may not always need more leisure tourism, but business delegates bring a different kind of tourism. The impact left by events and business spend is something the Scottish Government is rightly keen to capitalise upon.
It’s refreshing they understand the true value of business events, as too often a country’s media just want to know how many canapes were eaten or how many kilometres of cable were laid.
Would you rather business events were talked about as a $1.6 trillion global industry? What proportion of that does Scottish business events generate?
It’s a wonderful figure, isn’t it – calculated by the Events Industry Council in partnership with Oxford Economics. The US$1.6 trillion of total GDP supported by international business events ranks our sector as the 13th largest economy globally.
It’s tricky to put an economic impact figure on Scotland’s business events, but we believe it’s somewhere between two billion and six billion US dollars.
Leisure tourism in Scotland is worth around $15 billion, so we estimate that business tourism is around a quarter of that. Because of the difficulties defining our economic impact, we must also analyse the impact on sectors, growth and legacy. It’s about how events grow the knowledge economy, improve communities and create value for the destination.
At The Business of Events’ Global Policy Forum in Barcelona last year, the point was made that we shouldn’t have to lobby governments on the impact of business events – governments should be coming to us, asking how events can help drive sector growth.
I completely agree. We have a lot of work to do to create a measurement formula, shared case studies, consistent messaging and a greater understanding so that we no longer have to go ‘cap in hand’ to governments asking for support to stage or bring events into a destination. Events that drive growth, create opportunities, and power local economies should be a priority for ministers across different governmental departments.
How does the policy-driven model in Scotland work? Do you see success?
We do. There are economies of scale here in Scotland, which means that if we’re looking to attract a convention for a sector such as marine science, for example, we can go directly to the relevant government directorate. It could be a conference on oceans, but really, it’s a climate change issue, so we can approach either Marine Scotland or International Climate Change and have a good conversation about investing what might be a relatviely small amount of budget to bring the event to Scotland.
It’s important that not only the destination or the convention bureau ask for the conference. Having the Government explain why Scotland wants the convention adds a layer of gravitas and desire from the top.
Can you only expect letters of support from the Scottish Government or are ministers more willing to attend and stand on stage delivering a keynote address?
Yes, we have some very proactive MSPs (Members of the Scottish Parliament), including Richard Lochhead (Minister for Business, including Tourism), who is superb at turning up and speaking at events, plus Kate Forbes (Deputy First Minister), who spoke brilliantly at the World Forum of Foreign Direct Investment in Edinburgh a few years back.
What’s the secret to getting government colleagues engaged?
I believe it has a lot to do with their understanding that we’re not asking them to organise the conference. In my experience, they’re often not well-informed about the existence of DMCs or PCOs. I’m always the first to tell them that the private sector will manage and organise the event – the Government doesn’t need to involve itself with the logistics of managing a conference for thousands of people. Once they understand this, the opportunities are infinite.
How important is the language we use when conversing with governments?
It’s incredibly important. We all need to start speaking with a more consistent voice across all the different associations. In my year as PCMA Chair, I’m keen to speak to different audiences and help to create core messaging and shared resources that everyone can use to speak, not only to governments but to CEOs as well. After all, businesses can not meet their objectives unless they meet face-to-face with their customers or clients so CEOs need to understand the value of business events too.
Finally, what do you think will have the biggest impact on the business events sector in 2025?
Global economies are relatively stable, but geo-politically, the world is in an unbelievable state – something momentous seems to occur every other day. We’re lucky in the UK that we’re considered a safe and stable place to bring business events, but I worry turmoil in other countries will make organisations think twice about staging business events beyond their borders.
Our role in PCMA is to stay ahead of ongoing disruptors likely to impact the growth of business events while carrying on the strategic vision of 2030 and continuing our work in areas such as upskilling MICE professionals in using AI. The job of the meetings planner won’t be taken by AI but it may be taken by someone who knows how to use AI better than the previous person so we must keep up with future-facing technologies.