OUR TEAM
John Paladino, CIS
Owner & Founder
From offsite event planning to managing a corporate sales team for one of the largest midwestern hotel portfolios, John has a well-rounded resume in the hotel and hospitality industry. His life long passion for hospitality and his fifteen years of experience are foundational to Milestone Meetings.
After spending several years working on the hotel side, John came to the realization that there are two types of meeting brokers, the ones who care about their clients and the one who cares about their placement fees. Unfortunately his experience taught him that the majority of brokers are more concerned about their placement fees. But not John. As proof, he created Milestone Meetings.
"We Are in the Business to Accommodate"
Kelli Lanfersieck
VP of Meeting and Event
Management
Forever a planner, Kelli’s journey into event planning was a natural extension of her love of creating an experience to remember for everyone around her. For the last twenty years Kelli has combined that love with a knack for organization, grace under fire and attention to detail to create a fulfilling career in corporate, nonprofit and private event planning and production. Add to that list her ability to juggle multiple tasks at once and her ability for quick problem solving (skill sets sharpened as a mom to four busy kids) and you can see why she’s helped so many clients put their best foot forward throughout her career. Over the years, Kelli has mastered the art of contract negotiation, maximizing a budget and building relationships all while bringing her clients’ visions to life.
Kelli and her husband Ryan reside in St. Louis with their children Jackson, Elle and twins Trey and Ty. In her spare time you can find her on the field and in the stands coaching and cheering her kids’ various sports teams. And of course hosting the best end-of-season-parties around.
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MEETING BROKERS
All our Milestone Meeting Broker's work with the promise of putting our clients first. We require a minimum of 5 years of hotel sales experience along with a hard focus on hotel operations for all our Milestone Meeting Brokers. No matter if its a corporate, association, or incentive trip, our Brokers have the expertise and resources to deliver top notch venues to our clients at competitive prices. Once we assist you with locating the ideal hotel, we will then get to demonstrate our additional value by negotiating an impressive list of concessions, aggressive group rates, and favorable contract terms. Take the first step and connect with a Milestone Meeting Broker today!
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MEETING PLANNERS
Our network of Certified Meeting Planners and experienced Convention Service Managers are assigned to accounts based on our clients requested services. To ensure that we deliver the most affordable and reputable services, Milestone Meetings has hand-picked a network of contract planners that have a wide variety of experience from executive meetings to international incentives. As with our Meeting Brokers, Milestone Meetings requires all our contract planners to have a minimum of five years experience as a convention service manager and an additional two years of outsourced meeting planning experience.
"Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance"
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STRATEGIC PARTNERS
To top off our award winning team, Milestone Meetings prides itself on a robust network of Strategic Partners. With an estimated $5 million in auxiliary spend annually, we are leveraging our relationships and annual contributions to our Strategic Partners to help protect our client's bottom line. All our Strategic Partners have exceeded our past client's expectations and have the resources to offer their services nationwide. Just let us know what you are looking for and we can certainly find a way to deliver.