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International Member Profile - Bonnie Koenig

Name:  Bonnie Koenig
Title: President
Company: Going International
City/State: Chicago, IL

1. Why are you an international practitioner?  What do you like best about your current position? 

I am often asked how I became interested in doing international work and I believe it can be traced back to taking field trips to the United Nations HQ in New York as a student growing up. From there I did both my college and graduate work in International Relations at a time that this major was still fairly unusual. I enjoy learning about other cultures, having some small stake in making the world a better place, and being in a field that still has a lot of room for developing ‘state of the art’ practices.

My current position allows me to work with associations that are at key junctures in their organizational development, leading to many and varied challenges where I can use my experiences to help the association while often learning from each new challenge as well.

2. What idea or contribution to your organization are you most proud of?

One of the most satisfying projects I have worked on as a consultant over the past few years was helping the American Osteopathic Association create the Osteopathic International Alliance – an association of national counterpart associations.  (See http://www.do-online.osteotech.org/pdf/lcl_domagintl0804.pdf for additional info)

3. What is the biggest opportunity or challenge you see in your professional specialty area in the next five years?

Adapting to on-going changes in the world, especially outside of the U.S.  I believe that U.S. based associations are going to find it increasingly more challenging to stay abreast of the growing capabilities and interests of national and international associations based around the world.  Their international strategies will have to take into consideration the needs and capabilities and expectations of these counterpart organizations.

4. If you weren’t an international practitioner, what profession would you most like to try?

This one really had me stumped.  I’ve been interested in international work for so   long, I can’t think of anything I would rather be doing!

5. Forgetting about work, if you could be anywhere in the world doing anything you wanted right now, where would you be and what would you be doing? 

My family and I like to participate in outdoor adventures around the world – we have hiked in places as far flung as Machu Pichu, Peru and the Tien Shan mountain range in Kyrgyzstan, have canoed in Quebec, trekked in Xishuangbanna in China (while living in China)  and snorkeled in the Great Barrier Reef in Australia (while living in Australia).  So I would be happy being most anywhere in the world doing something of similar interest and challenge!