Alliance for Automotive Innovation represents the entire auto industry – manufacturers, suppliers, semiconductor and battery producers, and technology providers. The auto industry is the country’s largest manufacturing sector – supporting 10 million jobs coast-to-coast and five percent of GDP. It’s also a sector undergoing a 100-year transformation – grappling with the mega trends of electrification, automation and connectivity – unfolding in a high stakes policy environment. To prepare the association for the exciting but unpredictable future, we turned to Dan Varroney and Potomac Core to assess the association from top-to-bottom and help reimagine our role supporting the auto industry in the years ahead. Dan thoughtfully guided us through a six-month process ultimately producing a plan to expand the association’s core offerings and update its business model. Trade associations looking to build agenda setting organizations are in good hands with Dan and the Potomac Core team.

Conducting strategic planning in the middle of a global pandemic, economic uncertainty, and an election year was challenging. We needed a fresh approach to determine how the Association could evolve into a valuable strategic resource in new areas affecting the business of frozen food in addition to our core strengths of advocacy and food safety. Dan Varroney and his Team at Potomac Core – Association Consulting did an impressive job implementing a thorough, iterative, and data driven planning process. Their energetic, collaborative, and results driven approach was highly effective, and it energized our Board and staff. Our new strategic plan reflects Industry challenges and outcomes, and now AFFI is even better positioned to deliver long term strategic solutions for our members.

SC&RA engaged Potomac Core to facilitate our 2024 strategic planning process and found the initiative to be thoughtful, insightful, efficient, and very effective. The strategic planning committee recognized Dan Varroney’s practical experience in the trade association community, combined with his advocacy, communications, and membership engagement ideas to align well with the association’s forward-thinking agenda. Dan maintains a broad network of association contacts and remains actively engaged in a host of benchmarking exercises that help provide a solid basis for sound association management practices.

Dan Varroney was instrumental in the development of the Naval Academy Alumni Association’s Strategic Plan 2030. Dan quickly learned the culture and nuances of our organization, as well as the strengths and expertise of the planning committee that we assembled. He elegantly led us through his process and framework, while allowing for deviations from that framework when we came upon areas that needed special attention. Over the course of nine months, the plan ownership shifted from Dan, to the committee, and ultimately to us staff members who put the final details together. We are grateful for Dan’s commitment to our organization and thoroughly enjoyed working with him. He’s a true professional and a wonderful person!