His selection was announced to delegates at an Action For Business Forum hosted by the Chamber’s Local Council at the town’s Village Hotel this morning. He takes over from Rob Isherwood, Operations Manager at O2, who has held the role for the past two years.
As well as becoming President Mr Roberts will also now chair future meetings of the Local Council, a group of Bury-based business people in which he has been active for the past five years. The council determines topics to be discussed at a regional level by the Chamber’s Policy & Campaign Committee and its main council. As chair he will also liaise with key local stakeholders including Bury Council, Bury College - with whom his company already works closely – and the borough’s two members of parliament.
Commenting on his new role Mr Roberts said: “It is a great privilege to be given this opportunity to represent the interests of Bury’s thriving and diverse business community at a regional level. Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce already offers excellent support and resources to Bury businesses but, through listening to our local members and Action For Business Forum delegates my aim is to ensure it can be even more effective and responsive to our needs.”
Mr Roberts joined Pennine Telecom as an apprentice in 1978 and having earned successive promotions led a management buyout of the company as managing director in 2003. Today he heads a £11m turnover group which employs over 60 staff not only in the core Pennine data, networking and telecommunications business but also Yealink UK which supplies feature-rich IP telephone handsets and Interquartz UK providing analogue telephone handsets globally.
Chris Fletcher, Director of Policy & Communications at The Chamber welcomed his selection, saying: “Andrew has been an active member of the Chamber for many years and an influential figure in the wider business community where he is respected in particular for his commitment to developing vocational education and filling vital skills gaps in the local economy. I am sure he will prove a passionate and articulate advocate for the wider interests of the broad business membership the Chamber enjoys in Bury.”