The Confederation of Guernsey Industry is beginning the search for a new chairperson to lead the local industry body.
Dave Newman, who has run the organisation for the past three years, is stepping aside from his role and would like nominations from across the business community, notably from those with experience of running small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
The Confederation of Guernsey Industry (CGi) has provided a unique voice for the grass roots of local industry – typically outside of the finance and hospitality sectors – since 1995 and its membership evolves to reflect the changes in the structure of the economy.
Mr Newman said the CGi established a valuable conduit between small businesses and the States in the early days of the pandemic and supported members on other issues so the new chairperson would need to draw on their experience and contacts to support local industry. He explained: “We were particularly effective in providing politicians and civil servants with practical feedback from our membership which helped resolve a number of issues that arose during Covid.
“The CGi has lobbied hard to mitigate the negative impacts of the Population Management Law and recently we took member firms to meet with Deputy Rob Prow, so that the Minister himself could understand their first hand experiences of how the law was working and the problems they are encountering.
“The ideal candidate for this role would be someone with first-hand experience in managing SMEs, who understands the challenges presented by the continuously evolving economic environment that we operate in, the impact of changes in Government policy and legislation and how this affects the many thousands of small businesses on the Island.”
