BFPA Directory 2019

Appraisal The Trade Association world is an unusual environment. The textbook definition of a trade association is ‘a representative and other collective body offering a range of services to businesses with common interests in a specific sector’. However, for me, this is too dry and isn’t enough; especially given the ever-growing commercial realities of running a business in 2019. For me, a trade association should help members to realise, either directly or indirectly, an increase in their bottom line. In cruder terms, we have to help member companies to sell more products and services. There will always be a valid and altruistic argument for ‘giving something back to the industry’ amongst Board directors who take part in the governance of the Association but fundamentally, todays trade association needs to contribute to the growth of its member businesses. Against this background, it also has to strike a balance between demonstrating its ‘not-for-profit’ status whilst recognising that, like any business, it has to survive on its own laurels and generate enough revenue to both cover its own overheads and finance the aspirations of the Board and its membership. Diplomacy All this makes the role of CEO in a trade association a challenging one and it typifies the need to ‘keep all of the people happy all of the time’. We all know that this utopian ideal is rarely realised thus the CEO must also have considerable resilience and be a consummate diplomat. Let me state from the outset that I have enjoyed enormously the past five years as CEO of the BFPA and I hope that the members and all other stakeholders, including the Board and the staff have also found my tenure more than tolerable. Whilst there are many types of trade associations, one of the common challenges that we all face is our dependency upon membership subscriptions and the need to offer our members good value for money. To this Five years in the chair 12 www.bfpa.co.uk Chris Buxton reflects upon his experience after five years as CEO of the BFPA and the importance of being market- and customer-driven.