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Chamber elects new president - August 2011

agm_150All change at AGM

City businessman George Yule has been elected as the new president of Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce.

 

Mr Yule, who was appointed at the Chamber’s AGM in June, is Executive Chairman of ROMAR International and is also a Board Director of Subsea UK, Chair of Aberdeen Sports Village and Corporate Patron of Befriend a Child. He was formerly CEO of Dominion Gas from 2006 to 2010, leading a management buyout of the company in 2007.  He succeeds Brewin Dolphin consultant Colin Crosby who has served as president since 2009.


Colin Parker, Chief Executive of Aberdeen Harbour, and Ron Cookson, MD of Technip UK, were elected as vice-presidents.  Carol Benzie of Aberdeen Airport is a new appointee to the Board while Shona Anderson, VisitScotland; Alex Drummond, Bank of Scotland and Belinda Miller, Aberdeenshire Council have been elected as new members on the Chamber’s Policy Council.

Mr Yule said he was looking forward to his term of office: “As someone from Aberdeen on a lifelong mission to ‘make a difference’ I’m honoured to be elected and I aim to build on the excellent work done by the long list of noteworthy predecessors of this prestigious position, particularly the sterling work carried out most recently by Colin Crosby, during the turbulent economic climate over the past two to three years.

“AGCC is regarded nationally as a visionary Chamber that sets the pace and standard for many of the issues facing all types of businesses, and locally it is seen as the business organisation to best represent the views and interests of its members and I look forward to working closely with Bob Collier and all of the Chamber staff in Aberdeen - and in particular to engage with our many member companies as we collectively continue our journey of delivering best value to the region and its communities.

“I’ve set myself three main objectives during my term as president where I hope I’ll make a difference and help the Chamber make a difference. In the widest sense we’ll be looking at the region which is served by the hamber and how we can add value to what we already do, within that we’ll look at the Chamber itself and its relationship with its members and how we can best serve the needs of individual members and the wider membership as a whole. My third objective is as a citizen of Aberdeen and I’ll be looking at how I personally can contribute to supporting the city.

“The next couple of years will undoubtedly bring challenges. We continue to live through very tough economic and social times at home and abroad. Although we are relatively sheltered from some of the worst effects of recession, we’re not immune and we cannot and should not take anything for granted – irrespective of our position as headquarters for the North Sea’s energy industry.

“There is of course much more to this area than energy and the range and scope of our Chamber membership reflects that. The work we are doing with our sector groups will identify what their priorities are and the Chamber will continue to
champion those priorities on their behalf through
lobbying and campaigning locally and at Holyrood, Westminster and beyond.

“I have a particular interest in how we improve and support our own region. We’re already seeing a number of positive initiatives taking place – Marischal College, fantastic developments at both universities, Aberdeen Sports Village, significant investment in our harbour and airport. Many other projects are work in progress – city centre regeneration and improvement, a new stadium for the Dons, the Energetica project, Trump and other golfing development – the list goes on. But we don’t want them to remain works in progress, we need to ensure that the various organisations championing these projects work in close collaboration rather than fall into the trap of competing with one another for scarce resources.

“We must adopt and support a ‘can do’ attitude to supplant the can’t do/won’t do culture which often seems to dominate local thinking and I look forward to working closely with our two local authorities and other organisations in the region to help achieve this.”

Mr Crosby said that he had achieved one of his primary aims during his term of office – forging a closer relationship with the members.

“It has been a really enjoyable experience,” he said, “I have met people from a wide variety of sectors and interests – politicians, business people and overseas visitors and that has been really good.”

He also said that despite the recession, the Chamber was in a better position financially than it was two years ago: “We have managed to stabilise membership and look forward to growth in the future. It is also providing a more tailored service to members through the establishment of sector specific groups with those covering tourism, oil & gas, Third sector and business services already in place and its role in supporting international development and export becomes ever more important. It has also led high profile campaigns over the past year on transport and business rates, has significantly raised its profile and continues to increase its influence in representing its members.

“We have also become better at working together with outside bodies. The most obvious example of that was the inaugural Business Week, a joint initiative which the Chamber, Enterprise North East Trust, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Scottish Council for Development and Industry led together.

“The Chamber recognises there is a common business agenda; that is not to say we always share the same issues but we do require to have a good relationship and that was one of my aims.

“I wish George good luck with the post. He has an excellent Chamber team and board to work with and I’m sure he’ll value the experience as much as I did.”