Susan Benshoff, Cmp, Cta ,Pca, Des Email & Phone Number

Barboursville, Virginia

Barboursville Vineyards is one of the most established wineries in the Monticello AVA. Started in 1976 by the Zonin family to add a Virginia winery to their other 8 wineries in Italy.American Express had our team take the Gallo Wine Course online to learn more about varietals, food pairing and marketing. This was to enhance our skills when planning events. I was fascinated by this course and delved deeper into the other chapters to learn more. I had worked some festivals in the past for Del Fosse and Prince Michel, however, Barboursville was right down the road and produced some of my favorite wines. Since I had recently moved to Charlottesville and worked from home, working in the tasting room allowed me to do something outside of the house that basically consisted of talking for 7 - 8 hours about some of my favorite topics; Wine, Charlottesville and Italy.

United States

American Express Meetings and Events became American Express Global Business Travel (GBT) I worked on a variety of teams and accounts from Government contractors, Pharma companies, corporations and internal events.My skills were varied. I worked on the best practice committee to train others on various aspects; I sourced, negotiated and contracted meetings and events ranging from 10 - 2000 attendees; from 1 day to 10 day events; domestically and around the world.I planned and executed events ranging from 30 - 2000 creating formal project plans and working with the customers to create exceptional events. From a 30 person 1 day training event, 750 attendees for a global event in San Juan, a series of internal events created to enhance the relationships of our internal account managers with our preferred suppliers, to a global quarterly team meeting occurring in 3 global locations concurrently.I would manage these events from sourcing thru to final budget and payments.In addition I would build the invitations and create the registration sites in Cvent; contract for speakers; design the badges; order giveaways; make room reservations; coordinate with group air; find and engage speakers; design offsite activities and created a community engagement component where we gave back to the communities that we visited.I am able to collaborate with others to make these events a successIn 2019 at our annual company event I was a runner up for an Exceptional Event award.My events often used the phone apps Double Dutch and Attendify and I was the creator and manager of these apps in advance of the program and onsite.

Ruckersville, Va

New York City Metropolitan Area

Maxvantage was a collaboration/merger of the Meetings and Events departments of American Express and Maritz. While the main office was St Louis and New York, I was in this position in a virtual role from my home in Ruckersville, VA. At this time I moved to the variable team. In this position I would work on any account that needed my assistance. Sort of an overflow. But in addition the variable team handled the onboarding of new accounts and also potential new business and one off events.I have a variety of skills so this team was a good fit for me. I am able to source meetings and build rfp's in Starcite and Cvent; I excel at planning and detailing events; I have some knowledge and skill with building basic websites in Starcite and Cvent (I do not know html coding but I can clone and edit if it already exists).In May of 2013 the collaboration ended and I Went back to American Express in the same role on the same accounts

New York City Metropolitan Area

American Express is the largest 3rd party travel management company in the world. While the main office is New York, I worked virtual from my home in Richmond and then Ruckersville, VA.In September 2007 I was able to move into the Meetings and Events division of the company. I was dedicated to one account, a government contractorI was trained on Starcite to build meeting requests, create RFP's, source and contract meetings, complete final budgets and run reporting.We were a team of 5 dedicated to this account. We sourced, managed and executed meetings from 10 to 2000.During the first 6 months I would travel to some of the offices to speak to the actual managers to train them on how to use our services and what services we could provide to them. We needed to build compliance and acceptance as the administrators had been used to doing this themselves.My goal was to show value and create savings through negotiating with our preferred suppliers while following company protocols and policies

Richmond, Virginia, United States

Thomas Cook was one of the oldest travel agencies formed in Britain in the late 1800's. I went to Thomas Cook as their Lead Agent (office assistant manager) in February 1995. We had a staff of 4 which was leisure, corporate and financial; and sales of about 2 million. In June of 1995 Thomas Cook was purchased by American Express, the largest third party travel management company in the world. At that time I reapplied for my position and the office manager retired. I retained my role as Lead Agent.Under American Express my role expanded. My manager sat in the Baltimore office, and Richmond was a smaller satellite. I attended sales calls with our account management team to grow our business, while booking corporate travel, providing relationship management to existing customers, coaching and growing the staff, training thru changes of GDS. The team grew to 12 agents at peak and my title changed with it. Lead Agent, Onsite Coordinator and then Team Leader.In addition I grew the business to include 200 small business accounts (Travel under 2 million) with total sales of 10,000,000 +.In 2004 the entire staff moved to remote positions and the physical office was closed. I enjoyed my team and the company, however, managers were not needed. So I downgraded to a Travel Counselor and worked from home while I continued to search for another management role.During my time working in these various roles I won the coveted award of Pacesetters 6 times, this award went to the top 5% of the company. The alternate years I won Trendsetter 3 times which was the next 5% of the company

Richmond, Virginia, United States

Adventures Unlimited was a family owned and operated travel agency in Richmond, VA that specialized in cruise tours.I came to Adventures Unlimited to manage and grow their corporate business. My job was mostly booking air, car and hotel arrangements for our corporate travelers. In addition I operated an incentive trip to Lucerne Switzerland for Southern States Cooperative. I created the trip along with the Tourism Board of Lucerne to take 200 people for one week. Traveled with clients for site visit then returned a year later. The trip consisted of meetings, optional tour excursions, dinners, dine a round evening, pre and post activities and airfare. I prepared all the information, made reservations, facilitated payment and final budgets and traveled onsite to ensure all parts of the event operated smoothly,In addition, Adventures Unlimited had a travel school that operated in the evening. Our goal was to train students to work in the travel industry. For my 2 years I created a curriculum and trained 5-10 students in a series of sessions on aspects of travel that included Geography, airport codes, GDS, constructing an itinerary, professionalism and other aspects of the industry at the time.

Richmond, Virginia, United States

Supertravel was a family owned travel agency, with a long standing history, located in Richmond, VA. We specialized in incentive travel.Started as a leisure travel counselor. Booking vacations and airfares as needed. However, my main focus was group air coordinator. We did about 20 incentive trips a year ranging from 30 attendees to 1000 in multiple movements. I would contact airlines and negotiate group contracts or charter flights from the hub cities, and then as we acquired actually attendees add in the connections from home towns.I worked on all aspects of these events, directly with the owner. Telexing and faxing properties, arranging high end FIT tours for pre and post excursions, preparing the written information for attendees, processing payments, managing transfers at the airports and traveling onsite with groups to coordinate with local staff and make sure events operated smoothly