Cade Lucas
The new chairman of the Committee for Wyndham is hoping to make it more forceful voice for business in the municipality.
Sanctuary Lakes businessman Craig Kennedy was last month elected as the committee’s new chairman, taking over from Peter Mayall who had held the role since 2016.
A lifelong Wyndham resident, owner of telecommunications company Kenstra and former owner of local Telstra dealerships and the Telstra Business Technology Centre in Hoppers Crossing, Mr Kennedy said he was approached to become chairman due to his extensive business to business experience in the area.
He said Wyndham needed a strong and unified voice for business.
“Even though Wyndham is huge in terms of population it doesn’t have a chamber of commerce,” Mr Kennedy said.
“You’ve got a lot of fragmented business groups, there is no real peak representative body.”
The Committee for Wyndham was established in 1998 and is the third oldest committee of its type in Australia.
Mr Kennedy said among his first priorities would be advocating for big picture infrastructure projects such as East Werribee, the Avalon Airport train station and the Western Industrial Freight Terminal.
He also wanted the committee to act as a conduit between big and small businesses in Wyndham.
“One of the things about Wyndham is that it has about 35000 businesses, but about 22000 are either micro businesses or sole traders so we want to connect large businesses to small businesses,” Mr Kennedy said.
“There’s a lot of large business in Wyndham, but the people who manage or own them don’t live in Wyndham, so we wanna help those guys connect to local Wyndham business and connect each other locally.”
Bridging the gap between Wyndham’s heavily multicultural workforce and locally owned businesses is another area Mr Kennedy wants to address, flagging initiatives to help migrants understand Australian workplace culture and be workplace ready.
“We believe that strong and vibrant business community helps the broader community’ Mr Kennedy said.
Committee for Wyndham CEO Barbara McLure is also set to depart the organisation with a replacement to be announced in the new year.
