Saari will lead the preeminent research organization for the incentive and recognition industry, driving the 2012 agenda on research and thought leadership

MINNEAPOLIS, May 2, 2012 – Aimia is proud to announce the appointment of Patty Saari, vice president, Business Loyalty Product and Strategy, as president of The Forum: Business Results Through People, the preeminent advocacy body for the loyalty and incentives industry. Saari is a respected industry expert in the application and delivery of rewards in the employee, channel and consumer space.

As a representative of Aimia, Saari will head the thought leadership organization as it focuses on providing valuable research to C-suite, human resources, and sales and marketing business sectors on a wide-range of topics, such as customer service, employee performance and engagement, and motivation and retention strategies.

“The goal,” said Saari, “is to make Forum research more frequent, relevant and useful to our constituents, end users, and the incentive and recognition industry.”

Saari leads the product development and strategy for Aimia Business Loyalty, which provides full-service meetings, engagement and events management focused on employee loyalty and channel loyalty marketing for some of the world's largest brands.

About The Forum
The Forum: Business Results Through People (www.BusinessResultsThroughPeople.org), affiliated with Northwestern University, is an organization for thought leadership advocating that the most effective way business leaders create and sustain organizational values is through partnership with people.

About Aimia
Groupe Aeroplan Inc., doing business as Aimia ("Aimia"), is a global leader in loyalty management. Aimia's unique capabilities include proven expertise in delivering proprietary loyalty services, launching and managing coalition loyalty programs, creating value through loyalty analytics and driving innovation in the emerging digital and mobile spaces. Aimia owns and operates Aeroplan, Canada's premier coalition loyalty program and Nectar, the United Kingdom's largest coalition loyalty program. In addition, Aimia has majority equity positions in Air Miles Middle East and Nectar Italia as well as a minority position in Club Premier, Mexico's leading coalition loyalty program and Cardlytics, a U.S.-based private company operating in merchant-funded transaction-driven marketing for electronic banking.

Aimia is a Canadian public company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX:AIM) and has over 3,400 employees in more than 20 countries around the world. For more information about Aimia, please visit www.aimia.com.