GlobalPittsburgh, which markets the Pittsburgh region to foreign businesses and other organizations, is absorbing the older Pittsburgh Council for International Visitors to bolster its capabilities on the eve of the Group of 20 economic summit.
The PCIV was founded about 50 years ago. Its two staffers transferred into GlobalPittsburgh, which had lost its funding in February.
Roger Cranville, who left as the alliance's global marketing chief in June, becomes president of GlobalPittsburgh, which was founded in 2001. The group expects to triple in the next five years its volume of foreigners paying business, academic and social visits.
"We feel there's a real opportunity, at the G-20 and afterwards," said Thomas Buell Jr., spokesman for GlobalPittsburgh.
