The PM Forum is a 4,000 strong regionally-based members' association, formed in 1996, dedicated to raising the standards of professional services marketing and to enhancing the credibility of marketers working in professional service firms worldwide.

October 2008

New viral network launched

Over 650 marketers worldwide signed up in the first 48 hours for the PM Forum's group at LinkedIn, the largest and fastest growing professional social network on the web with over 25 million members. The new group is not a substitute for PM Forum activities, but gives marketers the opportunity to build a wider network at no cost with those sharing an interest in the marketing of professional services firms. Please spread the word.

January 2008

New RD for PMF West Midlands

The PM Forum is delighted to announce that Hilary Campton, director at marketing consultancy V Formation, has been appointed as the new Regional Director for the Forum in the West Midlands.

April 2007

Marketing panel inaugural event

The Managing Partners' Forum Marketing Panel brings together hundreds of leaders in marketing and business development worldwide. The inaugural event is taking place in Frankfurt in May. more...

March 2007

New PM Forum regional leaders

The following members have recently taken on important roles at PM Forum:

Committee Chairs:

• Neil Dymond, head of marketing services and events at law firm Beachcroft (South West).
• Laoise Flanagan, head of marketing & PR North West at accountants Deloitte (North West).
• John Hogg, director of marketing and business development at law firm Mason Hayes+ Curran (Ireland).
• Justin Model, director NY marketing & communications at management consultancy Accenture (New York).
• Terrie Perella, national marketing director at accountants Deloitte (New England).

Regional Directors:

• Robin Shuker, managing director of branding consultants BrandsinAction (London).
• Jo Summers, director of market researchers Acritas (New York).

January 2007

Launching PM Forum Europe

PM Forum Europe launched on 1 January 2007, bringing together 300+ marketers in 20 countries in Continental Europe, including Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Ukraine and Russia.

Why join our unique community?

Professional services in fields such as accounting, architecture, consulting, engineering and law don't sell themselves. Marketing such services is a highly specialised skill.

The Professional Marketing Forum (PM Forum, for short) helps professional firms raise their abilities to market themselves. Founded in 1996, we are focused on three goals: increasing the impact of marketing in professional services; advancing your skills and capabilities in the fast-evolving profession of professional services marketing; and furthering your career.

We offer educational programs, networking opportunities and a chance to learn from other firms' experience in this challenging field. We hold events in major European and North American cities. Through their involvement, marketers at all levels, partners and fee-earners can gain leading edge ideas, benchmark their efforts, and become more effective and stronger in what they do.

Learn from other sectors

PM Forum enables marketing professionals to network with and learn from their peers across a wide range of professional services sectors, including: management consulting; law; accounting; and property. As a result, PM Forum provides members with practical lessons that go far beyond those of single sector associations.

What You Get

PM Forum corporate membership provides each marketer at a firm with a number of benefits:

• Free places at hundreds of educational events throughout Europe and North America (non-members can attend one event as a guest). Each event focuses on a single issue and typically features presentations by local professional services marketers who have achieved "best practice" in the topic at hand. The events provide great opportunities to network with other professional services marketers.
• Free subscription to pm (Professional Marketing) magazine, a monthly journal featuring in-depth articles by professional services marketers and experts in the field.
• Free access to more than 2,500 key-worded articles in the pm magazine online article archives. The search engine can also be accessed through member firm intranets.
• Free entry of marketing jobs on the Forum's online Job Bank, accessed by more than 1,000 marketers every week.

For more information visit www.pmforumeurope.com

In addition to participating in regular events (designed for a range of professional services marketers: event planning, PR professionals, writers, marketing managers, website developers, etc.), senior marketers have the opportunity to join an exclusive group, organising pan-regional educational/social events.

This will be a great place for senior marketers across Europe to interact with and learn from their peers from a wide sector of professional services firms: consulting, law, accounting, engineering, architecture, executive training and other sectors. Members of the programme are automatically enrolled in a global network in Europe and the U.S. known as the Marketing Panel of the Managing Partners' Forum, PM Forum's sister association. Members are encouraged to participate in bi-monthly surveys of hundreds of senior marketers in professional firms on issues they would like management to focus on, with findings restricted to members.

Members must be the senior-most marketing officers in their professional services firm (or a large practice/service line within the firm). Each must come with peer recommendations and two referees. Substitutes are not permitted at events.

More details are available on the Panels page of the MPF Website.

October 2006

MPF 2006 Awards presented

The winners have been announced for the MPF 2006 European Practice Management Awards, organised by the Managing Partners' Forum. In the category of Best Marketing Campaign (sponsor: Martindale-Hubbell) the winning firms was Shepherd & Wedderburn.
more...

October 2006

Conference breaks all records

The Forum's 11th Annual conference, this year entitled Putting clients at the heart of your firm, attracted over 200 delegates from as far afield as Moscow and Texas. Over 50% of those attending were from outside London. It was also the largest professional services marketing conference ever held anywhere. One delegate summed up with: "Great conference guys, huge turnout and slick as ever!"

September 2006

Aarons Appoint A CEO

Aaron & Partners Solicitors LLP, the leading commercial law firm for Chester and North Wales, have announced the appointment of Andy Duxbury as their new Chief Executive Officer. With his appointment Andy has become one of only a handful of non-lawyer chief executives in the legal profession, as the firm gears up for the next stage of its growth.

Andy Duxbury joins from top 50 law firm Cobbetts LLP, where he was been Business Development Director for the past 3½ years. A chartered marketer and former PM Forum North West Committee Member, Andy has over 25 years commercial experience in a number of industry sectors and is a former Marketing Director of Bevan Ashford in Bristol (now Bevan Brittan).

In his new position, Andy will take over from Simon Carter who has been Managing Partner for the past 14 years and played a significant role in building the 16-partner firm. Simon is moving into the role of Senior Partner, which will allow him to concentrate full time on client facing responsibilities as well as his Law Society committee commitments

Simon Carter said: “We are delighted that someone of Andy’s experience and reputation has agreed to join us as CEO. This is a dynamic and innovative approach for a law firm, and demonstrates the ambitions held within Aaron & Partners. Andy has just the sort of skills we require to help us launch the practice onto its next growth phase and we are looking forward to an exciting future.”

Andy Duxbury comments: “This is a tremendous opportunity for me to take on a strategically important position within a professional services practice. My focus is on using the skills and experience I have gained from both within and outside the legal profession to ensure the continuing successful development of Aaron & Partners, its people and its clients.”

Download full press release

August 2006

Leading Professional Firms Publicly Recognise Their Unsung Heroes

The finalists have been announced for the MPF 2006 European Practice Management Awards, organised by the Managing Partners' Forum. They are the only Awards to recognise the contribution of marketing, HR, technology, finance, knowledge and facilities to the management of professional firms with a European presence.

UK-based finalists include some of the best-known names in the professions, including: Accenture, Addleshaw Goddard, BDO Stoy Hayward, Clifford Chance, Deloitte, DLA Piper, Ernst & Young, Eversheds, KPMG, Linklaters, Lovells, Maclay Murray & Spens, PwC, Reed Smith, Smith & Williamson, SJ Berwin, Weil Gotshal & Manges and Wragge & Co.

The MPF also awards a European Winner trophy, restricted to initiatives led by firms and/or offices based in Europe but not in the UK. Finalists include: A&L Goodbody of Ireland; Cuatrecases of Spain, De Brauw Blackstone of Holland; and Gianni Origoni Grippo of Italy. The full list of European finalists will be published shortly.

Commented MPF Chair, Nigel Knowles Joint CEO of law firm DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary: "These annual Awards, now in their fifth year, form an integral part of the MPF 'unsung heroes' campaign, acting as a clear public signal that the professions appreciate the contribution of their practice management professionals. 'Best Learning Programme' was the most popular category in 2006, reflecting our members' increased emphasis on education and training. It is fantastic that firms are taking these Awards so seriously, with the judges commenting on the consistently high quality of entries."

The Awards are supported by blue chip sponsors, including Financial Times, Microsoft, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and Business in the Community. Judging is the responsibility of a distinguished panel of management consultants and experts, based in Europe, North America and Asia/Pacific, led by Alan Hodgart. The winners will be announced at the Awards dinner and ceremony, taking place at the London Marriott on 3 October 2006.

Download full press release

June 2006

Marketing resources mostly wasted in professional firms

The PM Forum's inaugural debate, sponsored by the Financial Times, Legal Week and The Managing Partners' Forum, recently held in London, voted narrowly in favour of the motion that 'marketing resources are mostly wasted in professional services firms'. Tim Nightingale of Nisus Consulting, speaking for the motion, commented that without contact with clients (an entirely accepted feedback process for marketers in other industries) and with a management team that won't empower the individual to use their skills, knowledge and experience, firms will continue to waste a host of ideas and initiatives that could bring about real change to the firm's profits.

All present agreed that management and marketing have to work closer together on strategy if the relevance of marketing services delivered to the client is to be maximised. "Why are we doing this?" seemed to be a useful question for marketers to challenge their partners with. If the answer did not fit the firm's agreed strategy, the project should be dropped. Marketers were encouraged to say no, and to manage their commitments to the partnership at the outset - agree what you will and won't do. The final message was that if you find yourself in a firm where senior management will not give you the "buy in" to develop a serious marketing strategy get out.

June 2006

New member benefit - Attend your Forum events for free

From September 2006 PM Forum speaker events in the UK and Ireland can be attended by members at no cost.

Why this major change to a firm's corporate membership? Member research says that free events will result in:

• A greater sense of community as more members participate;
• Removal of barriers for junior marketers who want to learn about marketing skills and concepts outside their current role;
• More fee earners willing to try out a 'marketing' event;
• More accurate budgeting of the real cost of belonging to an association.

Local committees hope that the change will result in enhanced dialogue and networking within the largest and fastest-growing global community in professional services marketing. Training workshops, web seminars, conferences and dinners will continue to be provided and charged at competitive rates.

March 2006

Online members' directory launched

Last month the PM Forum launched a new online directory of members to great interest from members and non-members alike.

It can be searched in two ways:

• Organisation search To find out which firms are members in a region or sector - this is available to non-members and members who have declined to be in the directory.
• Contact search A way of finding individual members - only available to members who have accepted to be in the directory themselves.

February 2006

PM Forum appoints new Regional Directors and Chairs for 2006

The PM Forum is delighted to announce the following Regional Director appointments: Scotland: Martin Street of Ramsay Consulting replaces Nick Davies of Kissing with Confidence; North West: Mike Perls of MC2 replaces Beverley Hulme of Eterniti Marketing; Yorkshire: Chris Manners of the Institute of Chartered Accountants replaces Asif Choudry of Resource Print Solutions.

The PM Forum is also delighted to announce the following Regional Chair appointments: London: Barbara Hamilton of Smith & Williamson replaces Sean Twomey of Norton Rose; Yorkshire: Sean Costello of PricewaterhouseCoopers replaces Rebecca Richards of Bentley Jennison.

February 2006

October 2005

PM Forum members win Managing Partners' Forum awards

13 out of 14 winners of the 2005 MPF European Practice Management Awards are members of the PM Forum, along with the majority of the finalists.
Congratulations! more..

September 2005

A free personal copy of pm for all Forum members

Now all employees in a member firm can receive their very own copy of pm magazine - just send your contact details to info@pmint.co.uk