Scott Stuart

Happy Saturday, and welcome to CEO speaks for Saturday, January 15, 2022—my first podcast of the new year.

Jane Mitnick

In the weeks leading up to New Year’s, I was thinking about my plans, ambitions, and goals. I kept referring back to Adam Grant's book ‘Think Again’, which challenges one to become alright with not knowing, being wrong, and rethinking our own conventional wisdom. I'd like to follow this as my model in my year as TMA Global President. The more open to new thoughts, ideas, and embracing the unknown we can be, chances are, we’ll become more innovative and productive. While doing similar things from year to year—whether we're trying to expand membership and chapters, increase our visibility, relevancy, and diversity in the bankruptcy and restructuring industry, provide relevant education to our members, support our chapters, increase our revenue, hold unique and innovative networking opportunities—perhaps we can leave an impact on the upcoming leaders by making things a little different. Who knows, maybe we'll make it the new normal!

Scott Stuart

And just like that, the table is set for TMA 2022, with TMA Global President Jane Mitnick having jump-started the year at the first Global Executive Board meeting held this past week, where, as you just heard, she spoke to a year where we will rethink our own conventional wisdom in our year of innovation through disruption. That is exactly what we at TMA will do. And there's much to do in 2022. This year will be the year where we embark on a new strategic plan that will help chart the course of TMA tomorrow for the next three to five years. In the coming months, we will be reaching out to different parts of our community to gain input and insights from you, as it is you who will shape our future, and your input that will be critical. Corporate Secretary Jonathan Reimche will act as the ambassador for this initiative, communicating and connecting with our strategic plan partner to keep our leaders and members apprised of progress on this effort, which will culminate in May, in Austin, Texas when we will hold a live strategic planning session, rolling in with our TMA Now conference held there.

In connection with our strategic planning, Global President Jane Mitnick announced her plans this week to launch a TMA global governance task force which will review and make recommendations on our bylaws and committee charters too. In connection with that, she's appointed former Global Chair Jeffrey Hampton to advise in this effort.

As we continue to set the table this week, Chapter Presidents Council Chair Pankaj Amin held our first Chapter President's Council meeting of 2022, along with his Co-Chair Rob Patrick. Chapter presidents were welcomed and reminded of the awesome resources available through this cooperative experience, where presidents can share and exchange ideas, brainstorm on better practices, and support each other all throughout the world. In attendance were both many of our North American Leaders, and several of our international leaders too, including two of our newest chapters from France and Turkey, as well as Spain who this June in Madrid will host the 2022 TMA Europe Annual Conference.

Many chapters wasted no time to kick off 2022 with great fanfare and amongst some of the great programming of the last two weeks, a shout out to TMA UK, with an impressive start to the year in hosting a virtual program and one of their most popular ones at that. Esteemed panelists shared their insights in their ‘Annual Turnaround Review/Preview’ event. Innovative as ever, Chapter President Paul Davies welcomed speakers Rufus Boyd, Ian Corfield, Paul Hirst, Kay Morley, and David Sanders who set the table for a robust discussion on the year behind us and the year ahead, along with members of the UK chapter, myself, and Global President Jane Mitnick. This virtual program was attended by delegates from the UK, US France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, and Switzerland too.

As I round out this first edition of CEO speaks for 2022, when we talk “innovation through disruption”, the table will truly be set in just a few weeks at the 2022 TMA Distressed Investing Conference, to be held at the Encore at the Wynn in Las Vegas, Nevada, February 8 through 11th. And what a grand event it will be! With over 500 attendees already committed, in this first in-person DIC since 2020, the bar is high, and we will surely exceed expectations, with education on critically important topics including supply chains struggle, interest rate forecasting, and the uncertainty inflation poses and how that will affect our economy and restructuring world at large. Our keynote speaker, Vikram Mansharamani, a Harvard University lecturer, and contributor to Fortune, Forbes, The New York Times, and other important publications, will dazzle and delight with his insights on global trends, developments, challenges, and forecasting sure to set the table for our professionals in 2022 right.

There's still time to register and our TMA room block remains open through the end of January. It's a conference that always charts the course for our professionals for the year ahead. And with our ever favorite Joint Opening Reception with SFNet, our NOW and NextGen programs, and our top networking opportunities, including our Capital Forum & Networking Reception and Martini Bar sendoff, it's a conference you will not want to miss.

Of course, we understand and appreciate ongoing health and safety concerns, and will adhere to the highest level of health and safety protocols all throughout this conference experience. If you have already registered, get ready for another groundbreaking and defining TMA moment. And if you haven't yet registered, we hope you will do so today to be part of establishing and setting the table for this year right. As always, thanks for taking the time to listen today to this first podcast of 2022, where we are setting the table for a year of innovation through disruption. Your input is critical, your contributions paramount, and your engagement is the foundation that will create a better TMA for all of our members. Until next time, I'm Scott Stuart. Be safe, resilient, and TMA proud!