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Hadih and warm greetings, Chamber members and supporters.
As I write this, I’m deep into preparing the 2025 budget and exploring savings opportunities and revenue growth.
I’ll be the first to admit this is not my comfort zone. Ask me about government policy and how it helps and hurts business, get me working on political and community advocacy to promote and support entrepreneurs, bring me into a room to develop partnership opportunities, sit me down for strategic planning, and I’m your guy.
Excel spreadsheets? Not so much.
Funny thing is I love numbers. Ask me about the Fibonacci sequence, why zero (0) and infinity (∞) are simultaneously essential and impossible, or how reality itself might be a mathematical construct and I will bore you to tears.
Budgets? Revenue and expense forecasting? Lord, have mercy.
But I know what needs to be done.
First, focus on this task because it’s essential, it’s challenging, and I’m dumb.
Second, an extension of the first, surround myself with smart people because I’m dumb, this is hard work, and I have to get it right.
So I’m leaning in on the budget process with some great people working to help me be successful. Partnership manager Colleen Sparrow has a lot of experience. Chamber bookkeeper Matt Hutcheon is a past Chamber board member and a former Chamber CEO in Kingston, Ont. The chamber’s vice-president of finance, Micaela Roque, is a partner at KPMG.
They’re working hard for me because they see how much I’m trying to compensate for my lack of knowledge. Or, as my wife says about me on the dance floor, energy and enthusiasm make up for lack of talent.
Once the budget is finalized and approved by the board of directors, I’ll share with you in January where we’re going in 2025, how we’re going to get there, and what I hope we can accomplish together.
All my best to each of you,
Neil
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