FROM BEHIND THE SCENES
ROBIN LOKERMAN
MCI Group

By Frans Rombouts

When Robin Lokerman (43) was nineteen, he came to Belgium. After two years he changed Antwerp for Brussels. He heads an association communication and events company with offices all around the world, ten of them in Europe with some 395 members of staff.

Robin Lokerman holds a Masters Degree in Management Science from Boston University Brussels. In 1991 he and a partner founded GIC Management, which became Europe's leading full service association management company. The company merged with MCI in August 2003, and today the MCI Brussels office employs over 85 full-time professional staff, serving as Permanent Office for 15 associations and working on a project-basis for many more.

Robin is a frequent speaker at business events and was course leader for the first European Masters-degree course on Meetings Management at IMHI in Paris, a joint venture of the French business school Groupe ESSEC and Cornell University School for Hospitality Management. Robin was honoured with the 2005 Planner of the Year award, by the MPI Belgian Chapter.

The Brussels office is a good mirror of Brussels: 85 staff members originate from 21 different countries.

Robin Lokerman: "Before I started GIC, I had already been ten years in Belgium, working for the European headquarters of 'Up with People', an organisation focussing on international youth exchange. I founded GIC in 1991 as a PCO company. After a short while it became clear that being a PCO was not enough and GIC gradually launched itself into association management, taking care of the entire communication and management needs and not just the conferences. Our first client was the European branch of MPI (Meeting Professionals International). And now the original two-men business has grown into MCI, the largest global association management company with over 390 people, half of which take care of more than 50 long-term association contracts.
When you start a company in our branch, you are faced with a choice: either you remain a small lifestyle company, where you are the key interface with your clients. When lifestyle entrepreneurs retire, their company ceases to exist.
Or you can create a real asset, a company that continues to grow and that will lead its own life and go on leading it, even when the founder isn't active anymore. This requires investing in people and creating senior positions, investing in systems that will continue, and thirdly long-term clients.

ROBIN LOKERMAN ON…

The role of a Managing Director
MCI President, Roger Tondeur always says: "A CEO is a VET: he has Vision, creates a suitable Environment for the company's Talent." I fully agree with that as in a service business like ours we can only offer talent to our clients. It is the top manager's duty to make sure that all conditions are met to cherish the talent of the staff to the utmost, so that they can be as productive as possible without being hindered by all kinds of obstacles. This means empowerment, providing support, creating a positive corporate culture, etc. This is the CEO's or Managing Director's task. And it is his challenge to attract the correct talent profiles and to keep them.

Relaxation
Running a business like ours requires a lot of my energy and time but it is extremely rewarding. It means being a lot on the road, or rather in the air, and consequently I am quite a bit away from home. When it comes to relaxation (for which I take too little time), I tend to play golf, tennis, go to the gym and I go sailing when the occasion presents itself.

I do not really like long holidays but I like to combine my business stay with some days off. My favourite spots are Brazil, South Africa and Bali. I prefer easy going holidays, full of relaxation with some books, a pool and sun. And I succeed in leaving my e-mails alone during two to three days.
I am lucky that my partner can often join me.

Household – new style
My partner and myself do not have the time to run a household, and neither of us likes to cook. So we have a close friend who lives with us and also takes care of us. Thanks to the Belgian law, permitting gay marriages, we can get married soon. If this is not a household, new style: three men in a house!
When in Brussels, we try to go to the gym at 19:00 hrs and when we come home, our friend has often prepared our food. This is heaven!  
He cooks vegetarian, and we have taken on his eating habits. Vegetarian food can be delicious, especially the salads and soups he prepares.
When we go out for dinner, we do not avoid meat but at home we are vegetarians. In Brussels Cospaia is one of our favourites, together with Scheltema and Belga Queen. A few days ago I had dinner at 'De Karmeliet' in Bruges. This was an incredible experience. These are, of course, big names but we also enjoy eating in smaller restaurants 'round the corner' for a simple meal and a good glass of wine.

Books etc.
At present I am reading James McGregor's 'One Billion Customers' about China. Although this is about business, it is nice to read. This book is quickly becoming the bible about doing business with and in China. It shows how to navigate the often treacherous waters of Chinese deal making.
And for pure entertainment I like the books by Robert Ludlum, Dan Brown and their likes. During my holidays I 'do' one book in two days.
I'm not quite into concerts – I'll catch up when I retire! Films, however, appeal more to me. One of the recent ones that made an impression on me was Ang Lee's 'Brokeback Mountain' with Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams.

Values: being yourself
I think that the key to real multiculturality is being yourself and looking at the others with respect. You should always try to have an open interpersonal communication. It is my experience that this works with all cultures. As MCI we sponsor MPI's 'Multicultural Initiative'. This is an online tool that tells you what cultural archetype you are. I was astonished to see the outcome of my analysis. The most adapted culture for me was the Saudi-Arabian – very surprising?! On second thoughts, this is the crossroads of two major cultural heritages: the European and the Asian. My partner comes from Slovenia and our chef is from Canada. And I, myself am Dutch but living for the better part of my life in Belgium and travelling the entire world. So, I suppose that I'm quite used to a multicultural environment.
Being yourself requires integrity. This means that you can look at yourself in an honest, open and critical way and that you look at the others in the same way, while you respect them. This is, for me, the most important value there is, and if we respect this I think we can prevent a whole lot of conflicts.
I tend to think that I am positively oriented and all those things that enervate other people, although they are beyond your own control, do not influence my humour. This is all energy lost. Over the years I have learned only to concentrate on those things that I can change or influence.
What does affect me, however, is the growing intolerance. Being homosexual I am often confronted with people who want to impose their own moral values –which they think are universal. These people have a kind of self-righteousness, which they project onto the rest of the world without doing even the slightest effort to feel some empathy for other people. I have the impression that this kind of intolerance –be it moral or religious- is increasing. Only open-minded people can contribute to a better world.
I am also convinced that our European social system has to change drastically. This complicated system of compromises, job security and privileges is a heritage of our past, is not workable anymore and needs updating, to say the least. Compared to the growing economies of Asia, we in Europe have to take a step back, and only few people realise this, I'm afraid. It is about time for Europe to be flexible and responsible. This is also the case on the professional level. In Europe money is the prime motivator for most people. Of course, you need a system of financial compensation, but more important is work satisfaction.

Robin Lokerman
MCI Group
Tel. +32-(0)2-7431540
robin.lokerman@mci-group.com
www.mci-group.com

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