Business News Business News Latest news from Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce
Saqib Bhatti
Steve Allen
Liz McKenzie Trio boost Chamber board
Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce (GBCC) has made three new appointments to its board – including a new vice-president. Saqib Bhatti, who has served as president of
the Asian Business Chamber of Commerce for the past four years, is to become the vice president of Birmingham Chamber. He will be joined on the board by Steve Allen,
head of the Birmingham office of law firm Mills & Reeve, and Liz McKenzie, of financial services firm Wesleyan. Saqib is a director at Younis Bhatti & Co
Chartered Accountants. Among other interests, he is also a director of the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP) and joint secretary general of Muslims for Britain, a non-partisan campaign group set up to engage British Muslims in national debates. He has also worked with a number of charities
in Pakistan and locally, where he is a trustee of the Lord Mayor’s Charity in Birmingham.
Saqib said: “It is a great honour to be the new
vice president for the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce. I follow in the footsteps of many great people and I look forward to working with the board. “This is a really exciting time for the region and
the Chamber is essential to its future development and success. I look forward to serving our members and helping to guide that journey.” Steve is former winner of the Birmingham Law
Society’s ‘International Solicitor of the Year’ award and is recognised in both the Chambers UK and Legal 500 UK as a ‘Leading Lawyer’ specialising in commercial litigation. He is also the chairman of the New York-
headquartered British American Business Council. Steve said: “I’m delighted to have joined the Chamber board. From working with the city- region's burgeoning SME community to large corporates, the Chamber’s mission to connect, support and grow all local businesses has never been more pertinent.”
Liz is the chief operating officer of financial
services firm Wesleyan in Birmingham. She joined Wesleyan in October 2010 as head
of corporate planning. Prior to this she spent 19 years at Toyota in a variety of roles in production control and manufacturing. In 2015, Liz was appointed chief operating
officer with responsibility for Wesleyan Financial Services, General Insurance, Practice Plan, Life & Pensions, the Transformation and operational excellence functions and IT. She is also chair of DPAS, which was acquired by Wesleyan in 2015. In June 2016, Liz won the IoD West Midlands Director of the Year Award for a Large Business. She said: “The Greater Birmingham Chamber
of Commerce has a long history of putting the needs of local businesses first and giving its members a collective voice. “I am delighted to have been appointed to the
board and look forward to helping the Chamber deliver its ambitious plans on behalf of members and patrons alike.”
Tributes paid to former director
David Chambers (pictured), former operations and international director of Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, has died at the age of 70. He was suffering from aggressive Parkinson’s disease. He left Birmingham Chamber in 2007 and went on to become
chief executive of the Black Country Chamber of Commerce, where he held the post for two years before retiring. Helen Phillips, who worked with David at Birmingham Chamber as head of international trade, said: “David had tremendous vision and his expertise and experience of international trade was second to none. “It was his foresight that led to the creation of the now-
defunct Midlands World Trade Forum, which he recognised as being absolutely essential at the time for the Chamber’s continued involvement in global trade. It was equally his idea to launch the West Midlands Chambers LLP and was instrumental in developing the Chamber’s association with Business Link.”
David joined Birmingham Chamber as international trade director in June 1997, responsible for the delivery of the then UKTI contract along with other international activities of the Chamber and its partners. He ensured that Birmingham Chamber developed the
largest and most active international department in the UK and his legacy continues to contribute to its unrivalled track record in this field. David had a number of other senior positions in Birmingham Chamber, including commercial director, operations director and executive director of the Chambers’ Business Services Division, which included managing the
delivery of the government’s Business Link contract. He ensured that the Birmingham Chamber and Business Link
were consistently in the top three performing Business Links in the UK. David had two children from his first marriage and had retired to Tenby in Wales with his second wife, Lesley.
July/August 2017 CHAMBERLINK5
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