Recently we announced that our CEO Chris Sargisson will be completing his five-year term in July. From the 1st August, our COO Nova Fairbank will be stepping up to the CEO role. We asked some of our board members for questions they’d like to ask Chris and Nova. Chris: What is your proudest achievement in your time as CEO? Without a doubt, it’s been the positive results from the change/disruption piece which has been the theme of my five-year term. Positive is good given it was the task I was set and the reason I was recruited. The challenge when changing an organisation at its DNA level is it takes time, deliberately no ‘big bang wins’ and it’s a full-time job. You start with understanding the purpose and relevancy of your organisation both now and into the future, then you articulate this as a vision, mission, and goal, and then you breakdown every element; culture, brand, processes, pricing, offering, services and then rebuild to fulfil the new vision. This work has to run alongside the serious and privileged role of being the CEO to one of the region’s oldest and largest business groups which, guess what is also a full-time job. Nova: As the incoming CEO, what goals do you have for the Chamber? My goals are all based on continuing with the 10-year plan that Chris and I developed together. It will involve lots and lots of continued business engagement – leading to a better understanding of the business community, continued relevancy and visibility, supporting member-led demand and further digital innovation, and ultimately all of that will deliver greater growth for the Chambers. Nova: What advice would you give to the person who is taking over from you as COO? Run! No seriously, your team is everything and we are so lucky to have an awesome team. The team never ceases to amaze me with their passion, enthusiasm, skill sets, and their ability to adapt and multi-task to get the job done successfully. Chris: If you could give Norfolk Businesses any pieces of advice, what would it be (could be different for start-ups, SME’s, and larger businesses) Three words. Engage, engage, engage. Meet people who you don’t know, and seek and apply the knowledge you don’t have. Seek those in same roles in different sectors. Work is hard and if you’re not careful in occupying all your time, then you’re in danger of only knowing what you know. Nova: If you could give Norfolk Businesses wanting to grow in the next 5 years advice, what would it be? Know your market, know your team and understand what success looks like for your business. You can then reverse engineer the steps you need to take to achieve your goals. You also need to build in contingency and be prepared to adapt – the best-laid plans and all that! Chris: What has been the very best moment from the last 5 years in the business? This has been an amazing job, which of course at times has also been my most challenging job, (so far…worth pointing out that I’m not retiring!). There have been so many amazing moments which always have been due to amazing people I’ve met. So, on that bases, the very best moment would be our B2B event in 2021. The biggest event on our calendar which normally takes 9 months to plan. Covid restrictions only gave us 4 months and with real doubts that ‘if we build it, will they come ?’. The team pulled out every stop and burned all the midnight oil and pulled it off in spectacular, colourful style. For me, my role on the day was to visit every stand, 120 plus and (this still gives me goose bumps thinking about it) the feedback, the smiles, the laughter, and the business being done was just mind-blowing. The Chamber was back. Nova: What are you most looking forward to stepping into the new role? It is an honour and a privilege to be the CEO of Norfolk Chambers and I am proud to be entrusted with the care of the organisation. Our mission is to connect, support and give voice to every business in Norfolk, so I am most looking forward to continuing to deliver the mission. This will involve more engagement to help businesses to connect to each other and to help us to understand how we can best support them; the launching of our focus engagement groups to deliver a much louder and broader voice of business, which will inform everything we do, from events to lobbying. These focus groups will be spread across the whole of Norfolk, from the city to large towns, market towns and villages. They will be open to any business, from any sector, members and non members – we want to hear from everyone. We will be commencing these focus groups in late summer – so watch our website and newsletters for details of where the nearest focus group to you will be. Nova: You’ve already played such a huge part of the Chambers for the past (many, many years) what do you think the most crucial changes were in during Chris’ CEO ship and how are you hoping to continue that? That makes me sound ancient! But on the plus side it does give me a unique insight of how we used to do things, what works well, what is most important to the business community in Norfolk, and how we, as an organisation, need to behave and operate to ensure our continued success. I think the most crucial change Chris made was to put the customer at the heart of everything we do. The most critical question we now ask when considering any new concept or a potential contract is ‘how does this benefit the members?’ Another crucial change was the culture and ethos of the team – everyone has a positive ‘can-do’ attitude – all of which is designed to support the customer. Finally, we have also made great strides to ensure we are truly the Norfolk Chambers and that we are visible across the whole county. Find out more about the passing of the torch here Photo credit Norfolk Chambers
