The European Chamber held in front of a sizable crowd of senior member company representatives, its annual Board Elections. The meeting was called to order by the outgoing Chairman of the Shanghai Board (and Vice President of the Chamber) Mr. Dominique de Boisseson, who welcomed all the members attending and introduced the Returning Officer / Secretary General of the European Chamber, Mr. Ian Kay as well as Mr. Thomas Felber, General Manager of the Shanghai Chapter.
Mr. de Boisseson gave a brief and concise presentation of the European Chamber’s activity report for 2006 listing all its accomplishments over the past year in terms of member/staff increase and most importantly in terms of lobbying achievements. As pointed out by Mr. de Boisseson, the outlook for 2007 looks bright, which is again reflected by the growing number of candidates that have put themselves forward for the election.
The Returning Officer also applauded the fact that the European Chamber was having a very competitive election this year with 7 strong candidates. Mr. Kay then continued with the order of business and the election procedural remarks.
The next order on the agenda was the hustings for all 7 candidates.
The election procedure was divided into 2 parts, the first part being the election of the Shanghai Representative / Vice President-designate and the second part being the election of the 4 local Shanghai Board members.
After casting the first ballot the Returning Officer validated all votes and declared that Mr. KK Ho of Philips has been elected as the new Shanghai Representative / Vice President-designate. The non-elected candidate was then added into the ballot for the second vote. After casting the second ballot the Returning Officer validated all votes again and declared that the new Shanghai Board members are: Herman Vandaele (Bekaert China); Didier Baudrand (BP (China) Holdings Ltd.); Dr. Richard Zhang (Merck China); Piter de Jong (ING Bank)
After the concluding remarks by the new Chairman Mr. KK Ho, Mr. Thomas Felber briefly thanked again all those present and presented on behalf of the European Chamber a gift to both Mr. Dominique de Boisseson (outgoing Chairman of the Shanghai Board), Mr. David Chang (outgoing Board member) and in absentia Mr. Ralph Vigo Koppitz (outgoing Board member) for their guidance and relentless support of the Chamber in the past years.
All members were then invited to enjoy the Cocktail reception.
The liaison office in Shanghai congratulates all successful Board members to their election and is looking forward working together with them over the next year. It is anticipated that 2007/8 will continue to see further growth in members, greater diversity in events and further improved quality in the overall service that it offers to its members in its new ‘state-of-the-art’ premises.