President
Many highlights
As Jim McHarg reaches the conclusion of a two-year tenure, he reflects on his time working with a passionate Chamber team and the inspiring businesses of Glasgow
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www.glasgowchamberofcommerce.com
AS I WRITE WHAT WILL BE MY LAST introduction to Glasgow Business magazine, it has been both an honour and a privilege to serve as your President and to work with the extremely capable and passionate team at Glasgow Chamber of Commerce and to lead the Board and Council of Directors on behalf of you, our members. There have been many highlights throughout my two-year tenure, but few can match the joy and admiration of witnessing Glasgow businesses earning their place in the spotlight at the annual Glasgow Business Awards. It is the undoubted pinnacle of the Chamber’s events calendar, and a showcase of all that is great about our city and we are once again grateful to Royal Bank of Scotland for being our headline sponsor for this, the 22nd year of the awards. It was a personal pleasure for me to be able to welcome our dinner guests and congratulate all the winners, those commended, the runners-up, and all the companies who put themselves forward for these prestigious prizes. It is so pleasing to see a year
on year increase in the diversity of nominations for each of the categories; ranging from the well established businesses in the city to our emerging businesses and younger business leaders who are rightly on the stage picking up prizes. That’s all great news and bodes well for the future. By way of an example, we saw Cameron Facenna, one of the younger family members from Allied Vehicles Group, the business crowned Most Outstanding Business, stepping up to collect the prize; Kieran Coyle, of Premiership Experience, winning Entrepreneur of the Year; while Tony Quinn, of Silver Cloud, won Young Business Person of the Year for targeting millennial customers, while his company won Best Performing Small-Medium Business. All young businesspeople that deserve the recognition for their ambition, drive and commitment to achieve great things for their businesses.
Membership remains healthy and
increasing and we are welcoming many new faces at our events”
It was also great to acknowledge Ian Curle, who after running the Edrington Group as CEO for the last 15 years, was awarded the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Ian has been instrumental in
transforming the business from a successful scotch whisky producer employing 900 people, to a leading premium spirits brand building the company with 3000 employees across many international locations. More locally, in recent years, the company’s executive head office is back in the centre of Glasgow, in Queen Street, while the company, under Ian’s leadership, made fabulous investment in Scotland with the new Macallan Distillery on Speyside. As I step down at the end of
January 2020 and hand over the role of President to my successor, I would like to thank Stuart Patrick and his dedicated and hard-working team at the Chamber. One of my ambitions as President was to encourage more Glasgow businesses to see the value of being a member of the Chamber where they could network, learn, collaborate and influence the direction of the many changes that the city is driving for and experiencing. I believe that we have made good progress in this area with membership remaining healthy and increasing and we are welcoming many new faces at our events. In addition to this, during the last two years, we have introduced our five policy forums and I acknowledge the traction gained, commitment and work done by all of the forum members as they engage with and influence city policy
at multiple levels. On the international front, it has
been fantastic to have been able to represent the Chamber at various events in Berlin and Milan and to have been part of a trade mission to China in November. Despite the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world that we live and do business in, your Chamber has been forging ahead to establish relationships in these countries, and others, to assist businesses in Glasgow in developing connections in order to trade across borders - which is aligned to our founding principle. I have enjoyed every minute of
being your President and I wish Stuart, the team and my successor every success as they take the Chamber forward into the next decade and with your involvement and support we can continue to make Glasgow an even better place to do business in, live in and visit.
Jim McHarg, President president@glasgowchamber
ofcommerce.com
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