194: Kyle Edmiston • What's Ahead for Destinations International

And many board leaders have had a specific focus when they take on the chair of Destinations International.

For our friend Rick Antonsen, who was the very first guest on DMOU, it was the environment, if you can believe that, back in 2002.

For the late Spurgeon Richardson, it was ethics and accountability.

More recently, Scott White's agenda included fostering the next generation of destination leaders, and Leslie Bruce encouraged us all to practice radical collaboration.

So what will be the focus for Kyle Edmiston?

Well, you know, interestingly enough, Bill, all of those chairs kind of got to determine what they wanted their focus to be, and fortunately or unfortunately for me, my focus is, uh, kind of been handed to me by Don Welsh's decision to, uh, retire at the end of 2027 as our president and CEO, and so I have been tasked with leading the search to find the next president and CEO of Destinations International.

Certainly there are other focuses that we'll be, uh, talking about in a few minutes.

The main focus and the legacy of my tenure as chair will be the selection of this next person to lead us into the next generation.

Interesting that it isn't necessarily your agenda, it is our agenda.

So tell me if you can, and I know that, you know, it's still in play, it's still in process.

Uh, you're just beginning.

I mean, you're a week in, right?

Right.

What are you looking for? What are you hearing the membership looking for in somebody to replace an individual who is kind of irreplaceable? I mean, honestly, if you look back over the past 30 years of DI CEOs, I don't think there's been an individual who has had as marked of a impact as Don Welsh, and that's always the thing, right? You never want to come in as the CEO after a superstar, [laughs] right? So what are you looking for?

Let's start with what we have, Bill, and, and follow up on what you just said.

The tenure of Don has been just phenomenal.

Uh, the organization as a whole when he came in was in dire straits.

It was struggling.

Membership was down, revenue was down, participation was down.

It was definitely on life support-

Oh, yeah

...

when Don joined the group.

And now you can see, you know, a healthy organization with financial reserves, participation at an all-time high in pretty much every event that they put on, membership at an all-time high.

And so, absolutely, I mean, he's been a savior that took us from, again, the dire straits we were in to where we are now, and to use your term, he's, he's just been a superstar.