"Kingston has the potential to become the best place in the UK for Entrepreneurism," believes Christopher Fogg, who has been elected as the new president of the town's chamber of commerce.

He runs the Kingston Innovation Centre, based at the same location as the chamber, and has recently taken on the role of Visiting Entrepreneur at Kingston University and the other six universities in the West Focus Group.

At the lunch of the AGM, he told members that he saw very large potential for Kingston Chamber. Kingston had an amazing range of very powerful public sector initiatives:-

  • Kingston Council had published a Community Plan that identified an overriding request to build on the knowledge economy as the only way to fuel the improvements that everyone wanted.
  • Kingston had led the way with the first BID "Kingston First". This included budgets to help small businesses.
  • Kingston University was the top university in the UK for outreach activities and now with funding West Focus was set up to support spin-out and spin-in initiatives.
  • Kingston College is planning a state-of-the-art new building designed specifically for the creative industries.
  • Creative industries were being funded by the council's support of culture.
  • Kingston Theatre is poised to become the jewel in the crown of the cultural centre of Kingston.
  • Kingston Innovation Centre is one of the top business incubators in the UK one of only nine to receive Best Practice Certification.

Kingston Chamber is in the position to help tie up all of the above initiatives.

It has been serving individual businesses in the borough for over 100 years and therefore "knows" its members like no other organisation.

The initiatives outlined above are all keen to reach out to the business community.

The chamber is in the perfect position to act as a hub between the top down strategies of the public sector organisations and the bottom-up strategy based on knowing what businesses require and how to contact them.

Christopher is a chartered accountant and has a degree in Physics as well as a recently completed MBA at Kingston Business School. He is currently studying for a philosophy degree at the Open University.

For more information about Kingston Chamber of Commerce contact Christopher Fogg or Lisa Gagliani on 020 8481 0450 or see www.kingstonchamber.co.uk Coming up:

  • June 1 On lining Filing workshop June 9 London Olympic Bid what it means for businesses locally \ presented by Ian Parkes.

June 16 Networking Lunch at Monty's Kingston June 29 Kingston First Seminar "How to see the wood for the trees" presented by Richard England of Shirlaws.