As new Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA chief James Pearson jetted off to Russia this week with a state trade delegation, his colleagues may hope he’s dotted the ‘i’s and crossed the ‘t’s on his paperwork.
As new Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA chief James Pearson jetted off to Russia this week with a state trade delegation, his colleagues may hope he’s dotted the ‘i’s and crossed the ‘t’s on his paperwork.
When it comes to visa applications, the newly installed peak body head has at least one notable past indiscretion – something few international travellers would have to admit to.
That was in 1992 when, as acting Australian high commissioner to Vanuatu, he was expelled from the Pacific island with 24 hours notice after causing a diplomatic incident by interfering in the internal affairs of another country.
While Mr Pearson cites the incident of almost 16 years ago as one of his biggest failures, it could almost be comforting for CCIWA members to hear the reason for his expulsion.
“The real reason was I had complained to the Vanuatu government about a new law that would give the Vanuatu government the right to take away business licences without appeal,” he said.
Such a law, Mr Pearson believed, would affect a lot of Australians operating in the region, so the career diplomat was directed by Canberra to object to what was seen as a draconian initiative.
He said the resulting expulsion was swift, igniting a diplomatic war of words.
“Although I knew the message was a difficult one for the Vanuatu government to hear, I was taken by surprise and I found myself powerless to do anything,” Mr Pearson said.
It was, he said, a great lesson.
“I should have thought through the range of responses that the Vanuatu government might have had,” Mr Pearson told WA Business News.
“You need to plan and you need to think through consequences. We did not have a plan B.”
It’s clearly a defining moment for the 48 year old, because making international news as a 30-something diplomat is not a great career move.
Yet, when viewed in the sequence of his career path ever since, understanding how public stances can work may well have been very beneficial.
On his CV are two prominent positions in the oil and gas world – that of WA and Northern Territory director of the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association, and then at Chevron, running its external affairs department during the frenetic past few years – both of which would have kept him in touch with many of the key government members he will need to engage with at CCIWA.
This background is something of the mandarin-mould of his predecessor, John Langoulant, whose background was in state Treasury.
Vanuatu aside, though, Mr Pearson does not come with the public profile of Mr Langoulant, who brought a known face to CCIWA and relished the limelight as he broadened its voice beyond the staple business issues of industrial relations and tax.
Mr Pearson said he doesn’t shy away from the spotlight, despite not being in its constant glare in recent years.
“What I have noticed since my appointment is people talk about John Langoulant and Lyndon Rowe and they talk about them and what I am going to be like in comparison to them,” he said.
“Everyone has their style and their strengths; that is what makes this interesting.
“This is a high-profile role, this is a position that matters in WA, that is the territory. I am very comfortable with that.”
It’s all part of “managing reputation and advancing issues for a constituency” that Mr Pearson feels has been at the core of what he has been doing for the better part of the past decade.
It’s a long way from the student activist who studied psychology after quitting medicine because he found he couldn’t stand the sight of blood.
It’s also a bit obvious in terms of fronting CCIWA. What is under the surface, though, seems to be a strong leaning to the ideology of the individual and free enterprise – perhaps understandable from the son of a ten-pound Pom who gained a scholarship to Scotch College.
Mr Pearson recalls thanking his parents for moving to WA, a place where class or rigid traditions are much less defining – unlike many of the places he worked as a career diplomat, be they Western countries or developing nations.
“If you apply yourself and work hard you can do anything you want,” he said of the home he adopted as an eight year old.
When asked to pose for a photograph for WA Business News, Mr Pearson jokes about rolling his sleeves up for the camera, so that he looks a bit more in tune with small business.
It’s the sort of thing someone with a public affairs and psychology background might think of, especially one who admits to being so “appallingly nerdy” that he used to browse management books as a student at University of WA’s Reid Library.
“How people are led,” he states. “That is one of the critical things that defines human society.”
His interest in leadership led him to gain an MBA by distant education from Deakin University.
But the small business angle is not just all theory.
At APPEA, during leaner times for those in oil and gas, the organisation sought to help smaller service providers collaborate to survive.
Even at Chevron, Mr Pearson said, it was obvious that big organisations can only survive through the existence of small to medium enterprises that do much of the work the oil majors generated.
And, while Mr Pearson has buildt his career in institutions, government and big business, there have been some clear lessons at home.
His wife has developed, in conjunction with motherhood, a thriving jewellery business of her own – Andrea Pearson Cultured Pearls – for which she won a WA Business News 40under40 award in 2003.
Operated successfully from home, Mr Pearson said he’s had an intensive introduction to what small business is all about.
“I like to think at this point in my career I have an understanding of the issues and realities that face small business,” he said.
