President's Message: Welcome NetIP Denver!

NetIP North America is excited to announce our latest addition to the NetIP community – NetIP Denver! Earlier this month, the NetIP North America Board of Directors (BOD) approved a charter for NetIP Denver at our 2013 Officers’ Leadership Conference (OLC) in Houston, Texas. We wish NetIP Denver success in these first few months of launching their chapter and sustainable growth for the years to come.

Starting early fall of 2012, NetIP Denver has went through a vigorous process of filing for incorporation and tax-exempt status, preparing bylaws, preparing and presenting an in-depth business plan to the NetIP North America Executive Team for approval, and presenting their request for a charter to the BOD at the OLC, which presentation included a market survey of the Denver region outlining potential for membership and growth. The founding team includes Akshay Bandiwdekar, Prabhat Mulchandani, Divya Rangarajan, Charul Mehtalia, and Mohit Chhabra of Denver, Colorado. If you have contacts in Denver that you would like to connect the founders to, please email me at ritu@netip.org.

In the coming months, NetIP Denver will throw their launch event and start promoting the NetIP Denver brand in their community. The NetIP North America Executive Team will continue to work with NetIP Denver to efficiently launch them forward and provide a successful start to this latest chapter.

I am also excited to announce our DARE TO BE series this year, including our Dare to be You as our 2013 NetIP North America Annual Conference (Conference) theme, Dare to be Diverse as our 2013 NetIP North America vision, and Dare to be Charitable as our 2013 Charity is Colorblind (CiC) theme. Bringing in a new chapter this year embraces these themes of diversity and empowerment, themes that our NetIP community as a whole will strive to embrace in 2013. We encourage you, our community base, to take these themes to heart and apply them every day this year to come. We also encourage you to meet our chapter leaders of our now 24 chapters in the NetIP community this year in San Francisco over Labor Day weekend at the Conference. Along with information about the Conference, discounted tickets are available today at our exciting and newly designed Conference homepage: http://www.sfba2013.netipconference.org/.

This year is off to a great start, and I am excited to see what is yet to come and be achieved.
Sincerely,
Ritu Singh
President, NetIP North America

NetIP Officer’s Leadership Conference – A weekend retreat in the South!

NetIP held its annual Officer’s Leadership Conference (OLC) last weekend where over 50 chapter officers from around North America gathered in Houston, Texas to share best practices, lessons learned, and collaborate for future initiatives. OLC is a unique platform in which NetIP North America invests in its leaders to engage in activities that empower each individual to provide an even greater impact when returning to their local communities.

The weekend began with a networking reception on Friday and a warm welcome from NetIP North America President, Ritu Singh, and members of the host chapter, NetIP Houston. Saturday was filled with multiple presentations from the North America executive team, covering topics relating to managing budgets, increasing social media presence, engaging local communities, and motivating local chapter boards. One of the highlights of the day was a Round Robin panel where several chapter leaders were able to share with their counterparts what strategies and events were used to make 2012 such a success. Many officers commented that this portion of the weekend was extremely valuable as they were able to get ideas that could be implemented immediately after returning to their respective cities. Chapter officers did not waste a minute of their time together as even lunch was set up based on officer roles so that individuals in similar roles could network, share ideas, and discuss challenges that each chapter city was facing.

Another highlight was a presentation by Sameen Piracha, who spoke to the group about an upcoming Smithsonian exhibition entitled “Beyond Bollywood” that will feature the story of South Asians in America. The NetIP group was excited and proud to work with the Smithsonian team to help get the story of Indian Americans out for the world to see and hear.

NetIP’s leadership retreat was grateful to be sponsored by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) whose representatives spoke to the group about leadership qualities and the importance of understanding colleagues and their personalities in order to thrive and successfully achieve mission goals.

Everyone left Houston refreshed and motivated, having made many new contacts and with new strategies and ideas to implement in their own chapter cities. Overall the weekend was a great success! Thanks to everyone who attended and thanks to NetIP Houston for hosting!