It is my personal privilege and pleasure to announce that the IEA Board has elected our President for the years 2013 and 2014. MarÃa José Munita will act as our President Elect during 2012 and then take on the mantle of President for the next two years. Mario will step down as President but remain on the Board until the end of 2014.
Ive been talking with MarÃa José about her new role and her feelings about the future.
MJ was first introduced the Enneagram by her parents when she was 18 and so has spent over half of her life immersed in the model. She has a background in marketing and worked with Shell and banks in Chile before she attended her first Enneagram workshop with her husband.
The experience totally transformed her life. As she came to understand more about herself and others she realized that her passion was to work with people as a coach and that the Enneagram was the perfect tool to do that. Shortly afterwards she gave up her job to study the Enneagram and Coaching and over a period of two years she attended most of Risos and Hudsons programs.
Her next transformation came in 2009 when she attended her first IEA conference. She started to expand her Enneagram studies by working with Ginger Lapid-Bogda and Mario Sikora, and reading widely around the subject, as she realized how rich and diverse our field is.
2009 was a really important year for MJ in other ways too; in a record period of time from May to July, she was part of the team that created IEA Chile. She attended the GAA meeting that year as her countrys representative and was elected to the Board by the Affiliates. She has the distinction of being the first person ever to be elected to the IEA Board. She went on to organize the 2nd and 3rd GAAs (General Assembly of Affiliates, that also includes the US Chapters) and became the International Affairs Chair. She is committed to putting forward the views of the Affiliates as we further internationalize our organization; she also sees her current job as pushing them to contribute more to the IEA.
Although it is early days to ask MJ how she wants her presidency to develop, she did tell me that she is proud to be a member of the current board which is moving forward in leaps and bounds in making the organization more professional.
These are challenging times; the IEA is growing and becoming a truly international organization, the membership has evolved and its needs are changing. This means that we need to adapt to it, and she is confident that we are currently going in the right direction.
By the end of this year many systems will finally be in place and this will make it easier to deliver our mission. She wants to contribute to making the IEA an organization that is valued by its members, continuously becomes more professional, and fosters a growing vibrant community.
