#FridayFive from the Executive Director: 27 June 2025

Another huge week covered in my #FridayFive. Can you spot the theme 😉

1. What a venue: We held our first Board meeting of the British Chamber of Commerce Singapore (BritCham) since the AGM, on board Royal Navy HMS Prince of Wales. A stunning venue for a brilliant meeting. Thanks Steve and Martin Kent for the opportunity. Great to welcome Ian Macdonald and Daisy Radford as new board members too to the group.

2.  Advancing UK interests: the UK Industrial Strategy was launched this week, and the Chamber is working with various partners and stakeholders in preparing opportunities for helping UK companies to grow in Singapore and Southeast Asia. For anyone interested in exploring the market, please get in touch with me or Louise Beazor, Head of Trade Services.

3.  Lots of meetings: as you can imagine, this week was filled with brilliant meetings. Thank you to Liam Thomson, Andrew WONG from Institute of Marine Engineering, Science & Technology (IMarEST), Matthew Dabbs from 42 Wealth Management (new members), Gavin Sung 宋志鴻 from 67 Pall Mall, and more for some excellent conversations about building better UK/Singapore ties and opportunities across our network. Great to also see Rob Kerr and hear about his business in post merger integration.

4.   Education in the UK: thank you to Lissy and Kane F. at the British Council who met with me and Lydia for discussion on a programme to promote UK Higher Education. Watch this space as things will develop in the next few months and for all UK universities, please do reach out to me or Lissy.

5.   Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology: I was delighted to join Haslam, Simon, Rodney, Steve Firstbrook and David, board members of the chamber, together with Naida (Mott MacDonald), Andrew Hodgson (Arup) John Kelly (Rolls-Royce) who are members of the chamber to talk about #AI, #tech, UK investment and opportunities to support both business and the #UK. with Peter Kyle. Thank you to Nikesh Mehta for the invitation.

Gutted to have missed the British Chambers of Commerce Global Annual Conference this week, its always a “must attend” event, but with HMS The Prince of Wales being in Singapore, it was spectacular and thank you to UK in Singapore and the Royal Navy for the invitation to attend various events onboard.

I think that’s it for this week as I down tools for a few days, but a big thank you and shout out to Tim Rockell, Russell Toop - Chartered MCSI, Mark Florance, Paddy Parvin, Simon Middlebrough, Christina Mason, Steve Firstbrook, Alexander Harrison, Vert (you know who you are!) and Peter Godfrey for being so supportive this week. I really needed it – you’re all awesome.

See you next week.