Katharine Giovanni, one of original founders of independent concierge industry, is a concierge & front-line staff trainer/consultant/speaker. Her thirty-year career started in 1984 in New York City where she started out as a receptionist for an advertising agency. In 1986 she started her event planning career and went on to become an event planner and concierge for Fortune 500 executives. She started her first company in 1995. In 1998, a handful of pioneers discovered the world of the independent concierge and Katharine was one of them. If you looked around the U.S. back then, you might have found two dozen concierge services, but certainly no more than that. Sensing a need, Katharine propelled her meeting planning business into something more cutting edge: a company that offered concierge services to an eclectic range of industries that had yet to discover the world of the concierge. In 2000, several of her Canadian clients called her and asked if she would ever consider forming a group for independent concierge. At the time, there were only a few associations in the United States and all of them were for hotel and corporate concierge, not independents. Why? Mostly because there was no independent concierge industry as yet. Later that year, Katharine founded the International Concierge and Lifestyle Management Association (ICLMA), the first association that targeted independent concierge companies. About 30 people joined in those early days and an industry was born. Sadly, in 2012 Katharine contracted stage 3 breast cancer and had to retire from ICLMA to concentrate on her health. A few years later, ICLMA's board of directors closed the association (the group never recovered from the recession). In 2016, Katharine came back completely healthy and went on to create ICLMNet - The International Concierge & Lifestyle Management Network. From Subaru to the leading social media company in the world, Katharine has significantly helped entrepreneurs and companies around the world.