Founded in 2003, PMI Budapest, Hungarian Chapter, will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2023. To mark the occasion, we spoke to László Kremmer, the current President of PMI Budapest, Hungarian Chapter, who joined the PMI Board Volunteer Advisory Committee on January 1, 2023 as the first project management professional in Hungary.

How did your PMI career start?

László Kremmer [KL]: on June 17, 2010, that is 13 years ago, I joined the PMI parent organization in the US and PMI Budapest, Hungarian Chapter also. For years I regularly attended the various professional events of the chapter. In 2012 I was invited to join the board. This was an honor for me on the one hand, but on the other hand it was a great responsibility for me to join the Board. In 2015 I joined the Regional Mentor Group of the parent organization, PMI. For 3 years I was responsible for 11 countries in the Eastern European region. For me, it was a great experience and an excellent learning opportunity to mentor new PMI Chapters and help them develop. In 2018, when my three-year mandate expired, I accepted the nomination to take over the position of President of PMI Budapest from Imre Szalay after 15 years, at the invitation of the then Chapter Board. Following the nomination, I was elected President by the General Assembly. According to our current statutes, all senior officers can hold office for 2x2 years. I have had the honor of being elected President of the Association several times in succession. My term as President expires on April 20, 2024.

In 2019, the Hungarian chapter won the PMI Chapter of the Year award. To what do you think they owe this success?

[KL]: Together with the local chapter presidency, we have achieved significant successes over the past five years. I am particularly proud of the Art of Projects international English speaking professional conference, which we are organizing for the eleventh time this year. Our English speaking conference has grown to become the largest conference organized by the PMI chapter in Central Europe.

For the past five years, every year we have welcomed hundreds of guests to the International Project Management Day on the first Thursday of November. I am proud of the joint successes we have achieved with the Presidency over the past five years. We have launched many initiatives together. Among others, the website renewal, the project manager mentoring program, the Lunch and Learn webinar series, the project manager salary survey, the publication of PMBOK7 in Hungarian, strategic agreements with several universities in Hungary and the launch of the International Project Manager Postgraduate English-language course with Corvinus University of Budapest.

What does the new job mean to you?

[KL]: Our joint successes have also attracted the interest of our mother organization. In September 2022, I was invited to join the Board Volunteer Advisory Committee of the PMI Board of Directors in the US. I believe that there is no greater honor for a project management professional than to be asked by the world's largest professional body of project managers to serve as an advisor to the Board of Directors.

I shared the fact of the invitation with the members of the association's board and asked for their opinion on what they would do in my position. After listening to the opinion of the Board, I decided to accept the honorable invitation and joined the PMI Board Volunteer Advisory Committee as of January 1, 2023.

At the same time, it became clear that due to conflict-of-interest rules, I could not hold the position of President of PMI Budapest, Hungarian Chapter and be a member of the PMI Board Volunteer Advisory Committee at the same time. I think that as a result of my three years as Vice President and then five years as President of the Association, and the three years as Regional Mentor, I have contributed to the development of the Hungarian project management community and the recognition of our profession in Hungary by giving the best of my knowledge over the past 11 years.

I think that it is a rare opportunity in the life of a project management professional when the parent PMI is asking you to assist the work of the international organization. For these reasons, I have decided to accept PMI's invitation and to hand over the chairmanship to my successor after five years with effect from April 20, 2023.

In addition to your role as a consultant, how do you support the work of PMI Budapest?

[KL]: According to our statutes, after the election of the new president, I will continue to hold the position of "Honorary President" in the life of the association, and I will continue to support the work of the association as the main organizer and professional director of the Art of Projects conference, and I will continue to participate in university relations and educational activities on behalf of PMI Budapest. I would also like to thank our membership for their trust and not least the support of the Board for the many professional successes we have achieved together over the past half decade.