Building relationships the goal

Darrin Walsh says Rotorua Chamber membership numbers are improving. Photo / FIle

Darrin Walsh believes the Rotorua Chamber of Commerce has made huge strides over the past year - and he's determined to see it go further.

Reflecting on a year as CEO, Mr Walsh said he wanted to see membership numbers boosted to 700 in a year's time although membership was tracking well from where it "bottomed out" at 530 members.

Mr Walsh took up the position last June after long-serving chief executive Roger Gordon's employment was terminated three months earlier. Mr Gordon later received a public apology from the chamber for the way his employment ended.

Mr Walsh said he walked into the job "bang on the beast that is the business awards", with just a handful of entries days out from closing. His biggest achievement was pulling off the awards with a strong entry line-up and more than 500 attendees was the highlight.

"It wasn't really until after the business awards that I was able to come up for air and start to give my focus to other areas."

Mr Walsh said he was confident membership numbers were heading in the right direction.

"Since October, we've got 68 new members with more in the pipeline."

Other goals included improving the chamber's financial position as well as a focus on this year's 25th anniversary of the business awards and boosting event sponsorship.

And he is pleased with the way the chamber's image has improved.

He said they'd gone from having a lack of speaker events to well-known business speakers approaching the chamber for an opportunity to speak.

He believed the junior chamber - which sees representative students from local high schools and Waiariki Institute of Technology - would help to link the business and education sectors together.

"It is important they are close."

Mr Walsh said the biggest challenge affecting the chamber - and businesses generally - was the economy.

He said when times were tough, memberships like the chamber's were often the first thing to go.

And while there was still a strong focus on advocacy, the focal point was more on building relationships. "Advocacy is not just standing on a soapbox telling the world there is a problem, it's about working with them so the issues don't become [bigger] issues."

While the jump from his previous career in banking to the chamber role wasn't huge, Mr Walsh found he had more of a public profile now.

"My focus in banking was working with business, I'm still working with business."