Member Article

Hull & Humber Chamber of Commerce hit £3.5 million turnover

Hull & Humber Chamber of Commerce is celebrating the second most successful year in its 177-year history after unveiling an excellent set of trading results.

In the last year, the business support and lobbying organisation, led by its members, but run by a small dedicated team of staff, earned over £130k profit on a turnover of circa £3.5-million.

Chief executive, Dr Ian Kelly, who is the longest serving chief executive in the UK Chamber network, with 20 years in charge at Hull & Humber, said: “These are quite excellent results bearing in mind the Chamber is not configured to make money.

“However, the Chamber is now a multi-faceted and diverse group of businesses in itself and we will plough these profits back into providing more activities that will help Humber businesses grow”.

The Chamber’s Acorn Fund, which in July celebrated its 10th anniversary of providing finance to fledgling local businesses has created over 4,400 jobs in the area and works with its sister company, Chamber Enterprise, to help prospective entrepreneurs get established and onto the first rung of the business ladder.

Manager Peter Sykes and his team have shown the way, guiding and advising them through the start-up stage and helping them to take their first tentative steps into the wider business world.

The team based at Beverley Road, in Hull and Port Offices in Grimsby, also hosts the HullBID team in Hull, which works in close partnership with Hull City Council on improving the trading environment, safety and entertainment experience in Hull’s City Centre.

Along with Chamber Training which helps around 350 people into apprenticeships every year and the normal course of lunches and events activity, the Chamber is itself a small business, but with a big agenda.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .