According to Ezadiin Omar, an internship is “like an armour of confidence that you can wear or a medal you can carry with you on your resume”.

I was incredibly proud today as our President Adrian Kloeden hosted a lunch to celebrate the Victorian Chamber’s 25 years of involvement in supporting Apprenticeships in Victoria. It was an honour to be joined by so many members and esteemed guests at Crown Melbourne for Apprenticeship Support Australia’s (ASA) 25-year celebration luncheon, including our guest speaker, the Hon Brendan O’Connor MP, Federal Minister for Skills and Training.

As a leading rail manufacturer, Alstom builds the trams and trains that service metro and regional Victoria.

I’m coming to you this week from beautiful Bendigo, where today we hosted one of our important Regional Roundtables. Hearing directly from business and industry is the best way for us to really get to the heart of our members’ concerns and challenges.

Melbourne Chamber members Melbourne Polytechnic and Jayco Australia were among the major winners at the 69th annual Victorian Training Awards.

We are gearing up for our highly-anticipated Victorian Chamber Presents: Victoria – the home of innovation event next week. Political and industry leaders, entrepreneurs and visionaries will come together to reveal future trends and explore strategies to foster innovation in the business landscape.

Melbourne Chamber member Westpac is urging Australians to be wary of fraudsters who are taking advantage of current cost-of-living pressures to rip off unsuspecting victims.

The Victorian and Melbourne Chambers of Commerce congratulate members and all businesses honoured at the Victorian Manufacturing Hall of Fame Awards for 2023.

Taking the temperature of the Victorian business community over the past few weeks, there is a distinctive chill in the confidence barometer. 

I was fortunate to catch up this week with an extremely impressive woman in Freda Miriklis, Chair of the Commonwealth Businesswomen’s Network (CBWN). The Victorian Chamber first cemented our connection with the CWBN in Geneva at the World Chambers Congress, where our Chamber Change program was a finalist in the Best Gender Equity Project category in the World Chambers Competition. It was great to discuss how we are going to collaborate with the CWBN to continue our work to help empower women in business.

Workers and employers continue to navigate the balance of working from home and in the office.

As a former international student, Jackson Yin knows the difficulties of finding employment in an overseas country. It’s why his business is giving back to multicultural youth in Australia through the Victorian Chamber’s internship program with Youth Activating Youth (YAY) and Jobs Victoria.

I hope this finds you well. I, for one, am still buzzing from last night’s Victorian Chamber President’s Dinner – our night of nights where we get to celebrate our members and the contribution that business makes to our great state.

Revamped Melbourne Chamber of Commerce (MCC) member categories enable businesses to gain maximum value from targeted networking and corporate entertaining, policy shaping, business advising and support, and brand building.

Ethnic name discrimination highlights glass ceilings do exist in the workplace, according to a Monash Business School study.

In another busy week for the Victorian Chamber, the hallways of our Collins St headquarters on Tuesday best demonstrated the role we play across all levels and sides of government.