Business News Chamber chief reflects on his
Paul Faulkner, the Chamber’s chief executive, leaves the organisation at Easter to take up a new role with the Richardson family, one of the UK’s foremost family businesses with a global property portfolio. Here, Paul looks back over his six years at the Chamber with Chamberlink editor John Lamb.
JOHN LAMB: As you prepare for your new role, did you realise what a complex and diverse organisation the Chamber was when you joined six years ago? PAUL FAULKNER: Absolutely not - but I had a vague understanding of the Chamber. When I was at Aston Villa we had been patron members and had, indeed, won a Chamber award back in 2010-11. I had a degree of engagement mainly through the regional networking side of things. It’s a big part of what the Chamber does but only a small part. I remember looking back and
understanding the role the policy team play and the complexity of the organisation with its different geographical divisions. The interaction around international trade and export documentation is a huge part of this very complex business. But I had no idea about any of this.
JL: Do you think the Chamber failed to get the message over about what it does and works harder at it now? PF: Quite often people and businesses have interaction and use the bits they feel most relevant to them. It’s not so much a failure. If you’re not exporting anything then you wouldn’t know about the documentation service the Chamber runs. We have worked
hard to cross-promote to spot opportunities and make sure the business community is aware of everything that goes on so they can utilise all of our services.
JL: The Chamber has changed quite a bit. Have you felt that over the past six years? PF: I came in and had quite a clear idea how we wanted to evolve the Chamber and build on everything that had gone before it. The Chamber has been around for over 200 years and it’s been very successful in that time. But every generation has to keep re- modelling, making sure you are fit for purpose for what the business community needs right now. In 2015 it was a time to build and we did a lot around membership and our different activities to really make sure that our work has been prominent. And, of course, we had to get
heavily engaged with the digital world. We are sat here now in a Covid landscape proving that if you are not business-savvy you’re missing a trick.
JL: What have been the challenges around Covid and Brexit, which are big issues you have had to mastermind over the past year? PF: Covid’s been very challenging in many ways. In the Chamber there have been many internal
challenges, like in lots of businesses. We have 100 staff here and you go suddenly from working in an open-plan office designed to foster cross-department working to having to flip and work from home. We do lots of personal
interaction and events and we had to quickly change and adapt to doing things digitally. That’s been challenging and I must say the team have adapted brilliantly and really seized the opportunities.
‘As a manager, I’ve found it tough not being with the team. You can only do so much digitally but we have been good at regular meetings’
Externally, the challenge has
been working with our members and the business community generally, helping them to navigate through what’s been a rapidly- changing landscape. From the time we first heard the word furlough, we had to decide what was going on and communicate that out to members and try to help them. And that continues to go on after nearly a year now. It’s been really tough and there
are businesses that haven’t been able to trade and do their business.
JL: We moved into an open-plan office that we can’t now use to bring us together and improve our direct contact among ourselves and members. In normal times there’s an average of an event a day to aid contact with members, so how have we done in maintaining that in these difficult times? PF: Yes, we have a big plan around engagement, making sure we are calling and speaking to members. Digital events are a way of
touching base but you do have to work harder. Like the experience at loads of businesses, it’s just not the same. As a manager, I’ve found it tough not being with the team. You can only do so much digitally but we have been good at regular meetings, like our 9am catch-up and bigger open sessions. That’s all well and good but
there’s nothing quite like walking around, talking to people checking what’s going on in their lives, talking about the football last night or this and that. You get to know people and in doing so you are developing plans and ideas. You edit as you go along and it’s easy to have a quick chat. But suddenly you are scattered to the winds and it’s a lot harder.
For the record: Paul Faulkner (right) in conversation with John Lamb
8 CHAMBERLINK March 2021
JL: Yes, doing it by Zoom or Teams is not the same and, as we have discovered, there’s always a lot of gossip to catch up on when you finally meet. The Chamber has coped well in this crisis and going back to when you arrived here, I’m sure you found it a delicate balance representing the private sector while still having empathy with the public sector – the councils and Government. I know it’s something you have worked on. How successful do you think it has been? PF: We have done really well, if I say so myself. For me, one key element of the Chamber is that it is independent. No-one tells us what to say or what to do. We represent our members and business in general and if we do not do it well they will not be engaged and they very quickly won’t be members. We are led by market-forces and we can be straight forward, honest and blunt with our stakeholders. But we always do that in a constructive way.
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