TOUGH times may be a good measure of a business, but few senior managers would admit to having enjoyed the challenge of the GFC. One of those few is Penelope Williamson, who runs the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia’s Perth office.
TOUGH times may be a good measure of a business, but few senior managers would admit to having enjoyed the challenge of the GFC.
One of those few is Penelope Williamson, who runs the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia’s Perth office.
AmCham, along with the Australia China Business Council, have emerged as two of the most effective business councils in Perth with fast-growing memberships and busy events schedules.
AmCham is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, with this milestone also marking the 16th year at the chamber for Ms Williamson, who is WA and Northern Territory general manager.
Ms Williamson has overseen the transformation of the chamber from a low-profile events body into a business-networking organisation directly responsible for millions of dollars worth of deals.
In her time at the helm she has increased the membership more than 10-fold and launched annual trade missions to the US, designed to link Australian businesses with trade opportunities in the US.
“One of the companies that went (on a trade mission) last year got a $400,000 contract and he was over the moon,” Ms Williamson said.
“And this year it got a $10 million contract with a company in the US.”
The chamber’s key objective is bilateral trade, but the local networking opportunities are the bedrock of the organisation, Ms Williamson said.
And with this as its focus the chamber is currently pursuing new members from the IT and agriculture sectors.
AmCham draws its core membership from businesses working in the state’s busy resource sector, including heavy hitters such as Woodside and Chevron.
“People often say we don’t have time to network but I think everybody realises that they need to network ... it showed when we had the GFC,” Ms Williamson said.
“The GFC was fantastic for us; all our members renewed their membership and we had more and more people saying we need to join and people who had left came back.”
The WA membership of the Australia China Business Council has ballooned from just 30 four years ago to more than 200.
And WA president Duncan Calder expects the council to continue to grow in size and stature as Australia’s relationship with this fast-growing trade partner expands.
ACBC’s WA division is its busiest branch, with two thirds of its membership drawn from the resource and infrastructure sectors.
Mr Calder said one of the council’s key roles was building relationships between high-level political figures in China and Australian businesses.
The council played a vital role when tensions developed between the two countries in 2009, after the jailing of Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu put immense pressure on the vital trade alliance.
However, tackling the negative, and what Mr Calder claims are xenophobic media reports about Chinese investment in Australia, remained an ongoing challenge for the council as well as a key priority.
He said the council had an important role in informing people about the reality of the benefits of Chinese investment in Australia.
“It’s important to address the badly informed messages in the media,” Mr Calder said.
“For every $1 of export earnings out of the US we have $3 invested (by the US) into Australia, the same statistic for Chinese investment is 15 cents.”
The Australian Korean Business Council was launched in March and is Perth’s newest international business organisation.
It has been set up along similar lines to the ACBC, to give WA companies access to high-level government officials as well as contacts in the business community.
