As the new face of merging business organizations in Surrey and White Rock, Joslyn Young plans to be in the spotlight less than her predecessor.
A South Surrey resident with 20-plus years in government and external relations, she's been named the new CEO of Surrey Board of Trade (SBOT).
Young will also serve as acting executive director of South Surrey & White Rock Chamber of Commerce and, once its merger with SBOT is approved by federal authorities, will become CEO of a newly minted Surrey & White Rock Board of Trade, probably by spring.
With SBOT, Young replaces the high-profile Anita Huberman, after 31 years of work with the business-boosting organization.
"You'll see me, but likely not as much," Young said Monday (March 10) in an exclusive interview with the Now-Leader.
"When the board was asking me (during) the interview process, 'What are you most not looking forward to?' My answer was the lack of anonymity. I'm interested in having important conversations and moving forward the issues that are important to the membership in the right way, and I will do that. But that will not always require the spotlight, and I'm very good with that."
Young will be on the job starting March 31, and April 11 is the first big event on her calendar at the Surrey Women in Business Awards, where Dragons' Den star .
Raised in Abbotsford and also near Seattle, Young graduated from the KPU journalism program in 1998, dabbling in that profession before venturing into the non-profit world. Work followed with the Union of BC Municipalities, Canadian National Railway (CN) and, most recently, external relations for the Port of Vancouver. Since 2018 she's been a member of the chamber/board of trade network, serving as SBOT vice-chair for a time before stepping down to pursue the CEO role.
"Now I'm leading the charge," Young said with a smile. "They put me through the wringer to get here. I earned it, and I'm excited."
The organizational merger will be a big job, she agrees, because "it involves so many more details than you'd ever think there were. I'm mostly excited, but it's also daunting because you're bringing together two communities, very different communities.鈥� It's exciting because I think the more that we work together, the more we can do together."
Surrey Board of Trade boasts more than 6,000 "member contacts, while the South Surrey/White Rock business group has around 500.
United, they welcome Young as CEO after "an extensive and thorough search,鈥� according to Rory Morgan, chair of SBOT, in a news release. 鈥淢s. Young鈥檚 deep expertise in stakeholder relations, advocacy campaigns, crisis communications, international trade and supply chain operations makes her an outstanding choice to steer the Surrey Board of Trade, and ultimately the Surrey & White Rock Board of Trade, into an exciting new era.鈥�
Young says she's dedicated to championing policies and initiatives that foster local business growth, encourage innovation and ensure this region remains a leading economic hub, and she has ideas.
"I'll give you a theme word 鈥� actually two theme words: Partnerships and collaboration," Young commented. "I subscribe to what I call the abundance model, and that means that there is enough to go around, and when you succeed, I succeed. So I foresee a lot of collaborating with different groups such as other chambers of commerce and boards of trade. I see us collaborating with the consular corps in Vancouver representing 80 different countries from around the world. In order to diversify trade opportunities, we need to build relationships, and we literally have a port that has access to 170 different economies around the world right at our doorstep."
Young's first days on the job will involve meeting and reconnecting with people in the business and political communities, among other work.
"There's the internal and external piece of my first 90 days, for example, and first year," she said. "Internally, I need to learn the job. I need to learn what all of these amazing staff are doing every day and all of the different programs that we have here. When I was on the board we were not involved in operations, we were governance. So I have a lot to learn internally. And then externally, definitely I will be meeting with all of our key relationships and those that I hope to have a relationship with."
