#FridayFive from the Executive Director: 26 April 2024 | British Chamber Of Commerce Singapore

By David Kelly, Executive Director, British Chamber of Commerce Singapore

Happy Friday everyone. I’m not quite sure how this week was as busy as last, but incredible engagement across our network covering committees, communities and member companies growing. He is my Friday Five:

1.  70 Trees for 70 Years – we welcomed 80 people from the community to help plant 70 trees in Singapore, one for each of our years here, as part of our 70th birthday and the OneMillionTrees movement. It was great to see partners of members, students from our international school network and members. Thank you to the National Parks Board for their support. 🌳

2.  Earth Day and our Sustainability Report – one of the best documents that the we produce, we launched our 4th Sustainability Report on Earth Day. In the report, you can see all of our activities over the last year linked to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. We also remain (as far as I am aware) the only British Chamber of Commerce that is Carbon Neutral, and our willingness to do more is ingrained in our culture. I also met with the fabulous team at GoNetZero™ as we look to build on this – watch this space. 🌏

3.  Crucial Committees – our business committees are the heartbeat of the Chamber – why? Well, whilst the team and I try and create a supportive super-connecting platform for business discussions, our industry experts in our committees have the really valuable conversations. This week, our LTD committee met and heard from Max Holdsworth on his journey (thank you to Max and Teneo for hosting, and to Don Rapley who keeps the conversation flowing among members ). Our Energy and Utilities committee met with the UK’s North East Chamber of Commerce about current capabilities that the North East has around hydrogen – superb connectivity with the UK, and thanks to Tim Rockell, Mark Florance and Peter Godfrey. 👯

4. Meeting Members – one of the delights of my job is to meet our network. This week, I’ve had inspiring conversations with the brilliant Belfast-based John McGucken, MD at tech firm Fern Software who has continued to rollout and expand upon its Salesforce based products Quantum AI (an Automated Loan decision engine) and Baytree (100% native Salesforce core banking system) and has seen decent growth in Singapore. I always enjoy a catch up with Ollie Fox of Fintech Asia Limited, and have seen DBS Bank and the IMechE . Lucy and I also met the UK in Singapore comms team to join up activities. 🤝

5. Brilliant BT Group – we were pleased to support BT’s fantastic launch of their brand-new international network, Global Fabric, at the iconic Eden Hall. Great to see so much progress, networking and opportunity, and to support a key British brand here in Singapore. 👩‍💻

I hope you have a great weekend ahead, and please do reach out to me of the team if you need anything, and see you next week as we look forward to welcoming a business delegation from Scotland in association with the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce.