The Women in Fleet Management (WIFM) association announced it will co-locate its next meeting at the AFLA Canada 2020 Fleet Summit, which is the Automotive Fleet & Leasing Association’s (AFLA) first-ever fleet conference in Canada. This will also be WIFM’s first event in Canada.

The focus of the WIFM meeting is to showcase the resources it can offer women fleet leaders in Canada, which encourages personal and career fulfillment through mentoring, fleet expertise sharing, fleet and business community involvement, and networking.

The AFLA Canada Fleet Summit will be held on Feb. 12-13, 2020, at the Hilton Toronto Airport Hotel in Mississauga, Ontario. The educational focus of the AFLA Canada Fleet Summit is two-fold:

• It will promote fleet management education for Canadian based commercial fleet managers working for small and mid-size businesses.

• It will help multinational fleets operating in Canada to better understand the Canadian fleet market to optimize their fleet operations.

At the conference conclusion, the following day, Feb. 14, starts the 2020 Canadian International Autoshow in downtown Toronto. This will allow conference attendees an opportunity to maximize attendance ROI by getting a comprehensive immersion of the latest vehicles being sold in the Canadian market.

Attendees can register for the conference at https://www.afla.org/page/Canada

As background, WIFM was conceived in 2007 by Carolyn Edwards and Nancy D’Amico, both of whom worked for LeasePlan USA.  Since then, WIFM has experienced dramatic growth in both female and male membership and collocated its annual meeting with the AFLA conference in 2012, which have grown in popularity to be standing-room only events.

According to Edwards, who serves as senior vice president, Client Success for LeasePlan USA, the goal is to provide the same services offered in the U.S. to women fleet professionals in Canada and elsewhere in the world. Edwards’ vision is for WIFM to continue to its ongoing “growth and engagement” by offering its services to  women fleet professionals around the world.

“WIFM leaders have discussed taking the group global and creating ties with women’s fleet organizations elsewhere in the world,” said Edwards. In May 2019, Edwards gave an extremely well-received keynote address on “Women in Fleet Management” at the Australasian Fleet Management Association (AfMA) annual conference in Melbourne, Australia.  

AfMA is partnered with AFLA in Global Fleet Networking Consortium, which is also comprised of the Association of Car Fleet Operators (ACFO) in the UK, the Mexican Vehicle Leasing Association (AMAV) in Mexico, and the China Road Transport Association (CRTA) in China.