Positive feedback

Yesterday the day started with the 9.30 head‘s of section meeting where we had an interesting exchange of views on the Iberoamerican Conference held in Chile over the weekend; where Presidents of most of the Iberoamerican countries participated. It was a big change from the previous day when I was at the pool with my 3 children.

It has been a good week so far, as I received very positive feedback from 2 companies that we have been helping.

Dr. Jagdeesh Dhaliwal, Course Director MSc. in Health Services Management at Warwick University sent a nice email with feedback on the 4th Internship on Primary Care that they are conducting for members of the Chilean Health Service. This was a project that started as a joint effort between Michael Valdes Scott from Canning House, Dr. Dhaliwal from Warwick University and ourselves in 2004, and that has led to a consecutive award from Warwick University of the international internships on primary care from the Chilean Ministry of Health.  This internship scheme is a unique mix since it is taught entirely in Spanish - a first for any UK based Management course - and at the same time it supports Chilean Healthcare reform through a strong emphasis on primary care which is an area where the UK has built great expertise.

I also received a very supportive email from Paul Willets Director - Healthcare Development at Ryder HKS who has also been working at the National Health Service in the UK for over 30 years with specific expertise in PPP/PFI hospital procurements. We have been helping Ryder HKS through the OMIS system and I arranged and accompanied them to meetings with the companies that prequalified at the first PPP hospital infrastructure tender in Chile. As a follow up we included a visit to Ryder HKS in the UK by a group of Chilean architects that visited London this week, which was led by Monica Eggers from our commercial team. The exercise has proved very successful so far and we are confident that it will lead to business opportunities for Ryder HKS, specially since they are open to exchange knowledge and expertise with the Chilean architects.

Posted at 18:27 14 November 2007 by Maria Pia Gazzella  | 

SHORT (LONG) WEEK

This week has been a week unlike all the rest. Monday was a Bank Holiday in Chile and on Tuesday my eldest son had an operation, so I took off one and a half days. I wanted to be with him to help him get better more quickly. I finally got back to work yesterday afternoon. It was an intense afternoon with a lot of general enquiries and coordination of meetings and activities.  In the evening I took part in a charity supper hosted by a foundation that some of my MBA colleagues and I are doing some free-consultancy work for.

Today I am representing the Ambassador at the Santiago Chamber of Commerce’s Business Meeting (CCS) with diplomatic delegates. Later on this afternoon, I will be participating in the International Environmental Conference at the ExpoAmbiental 2007 environmental fair. British companies will participate at the fair, and today’s event will be attended by Energy Minister and the Environmental Minister. There will also be an official supper tonight for industry and government representatives. The environment sector offers two areas of special interest in which the Embassy has been working recently: CDM and climate change, and waste and waste water (especially in the mining industry). These areas offer specific opportunities for British companies, some of which are already working successfully in the marketplace. 

Tomorrow, I am attending a meeting with the Chilean Construction Chamber (CCS) and the Technological Development Corporation (CDT). They will give me a debriefing on their visit to the UK that I helped coordinate. The visit, which took place toward the end of September, enabled Chilean government and construction industry representatives to attend the Constructing Excellence Forum on technological innovation in the construction sector. The attendees also met up with industry companies and associations such as British Expertise. Last week, in the context of the FCO’s climate change objectives, a British expert was invited to participate in the conference on sustainable construction organised by CDT. The visit was co-ordinated by the Embassy`s political section. In the same context, toward the end of 2007 we will participate in a technological delegation to the UK whereby Chilean architects will meet up with their British peers. The event is being organized by Monica Eggers from the commercial section. The aim of these activities is to promote British technologies and management models and to strengthen the trade links between Chile and the UK, via the transfer of information and knowledge.

Well, given that this has been a two and a half day week, I’ve still got a lot to do… so I’m off to the CCS meeting. 

Posted at 14:40 19 October 2007 by Maria Pia Gazzella  |  Comments[1]