I N T E R V I E W
Becci
Himes
, Executive Director
British American Business Council
Interview by Sangeeta Dua
Becci: It was fairly easy, I knew the
Sangeeta: Talk to us about your
career in consul and how it got started. structure. It was easier for me to
come in with that background and
Becci: In 2004, I was recently wid- be able to put a volunteer board toowed needing to go back into the gether and make sure that they did
work market; I was homeschooling things the right way. It’s very easy for
my child for a while and had been in a volunteer board to get off course,
banking before and wasn’t sure that I to do things that might even possibly
wanted to do that again, but I had a be illegal without knowing it. That
friend who was president of the Brit- was basically my job, to keep them in
ish-American business council at that a straight line and keep them withtime, and I had been doing some vol- in the IRS regulations, and the acunteer work with some of his Scot- counting. And I do all that, not just
tish cultural organizations and knew the business development I do the
him from that. So, he invited me to accounting as well.
come interview. I wasn’t sure that I
wanted to do that kind of work ei- Sangeeta: What is the difference
ther, but I had met my now current between the consul and the chamber
partner, who is British, he’s English. of commerce?
I went to him and said, “What do
you think of this opportunity?” and Becci: It’s probably mostly termihe said, “Oh lovey, you must.” So I nology, but some of the things we
did, and have been there for almost don’t really focus on is policy work.
Our national headquarters in Lon13 years.
don and New York take care of most
Sangeeta: I know you have a back- of that for us, so I don’t really have
to deal with that. I also don’t do
ground in handling non-profit organitrade missions. UK trade investment,
zations, laws and regulations, so tell
which is now, with Brexit, is the Deus: was it easy for you to pickup the
partment of International Trade, they
pieces and go to work full time?
do that very well here in Houston.
We support any of the activities that
they have. I think they have maybe
20 employees here that focus on just
that business development.
Sangeeta: Tell us in detail about
your focus or your agenda for 2017.
Becci: Our agenda … we say we
can “connect our members to people, information, and opportunity.”
We do that through events, through
getting sponsorship opportunities for
our informational luncheons, ‘lunch
and learns’, that kind of thing. We
focus on obviously British companies that are here, but also American
companies who have a presence in
the UK, American companies that
want to have presence in the U.K,
and just American companies or any
other country that wants to do business with a British company.
In 2017 we’re focusing a lot in the
supply chain, trying to get some of
the bigger companies to come in and
explain what their process is to do
business with them.
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