This weekend, the Iraq Britain Business Council hosted its annual members’ retreat at Cumberland Lodge, Windsor Park, which was generously sponsored by Al Burhan Group. As with previous years, it was very well attended by over seventy delegates, and allowed our members to mingle and network with representatives of other businesses, civil servants, and Iraqi government dignitaries.

Speakers and organisations represented included:

Dr Falah Al Amiri, Advisor to the Ministry of Oil, Government of Iraq

Dr Hameed Ahmed, Deputy Higher Education Minister

Eng. Dara Rasheed, Deputy Minister of Housing, Construction & Municipalities

Jon Wilks CMG, HM Ambassador to Iraq

Beverley Simpson, Director, Department of International Trade (DIT) in Iraq

Dr Victoria Lindsay, Director, British Council, Iraq

Emma Sky, Director, Greenberg World Fellows Program, Yale University

Nicolas Pelham, The Economist

Professor Toby Dodge, London School of Economics

Dr Renad Mansour, Chatham House

Al Burhan Group

Al Maseer Insurance

Basra Gateway Terminal

Bath Spa University

BP

Chevron

Constellis

EAME

ENKA

ExxonMobil

Financial Times

G4S

GulfTek Saudi

KBR

Management Partners

Mosul University

OiLSERV Kuwait

Perkins+Will UK, Ltd

Petrofac

Petronor

Pro-Technique Group

Rolls-Royce

Serco

Shire Oak International

Stirling Education

Tube Tech International

TurnKey LLC

Unihouse Global

University of Dundee

University of Liverpool

University of Northampton

University of Sheffield

Wood Plc

Zaha Hadid Architects

Sessions included discussions and panels on the state of Iraq, contemporary Middle Eastern politics, meetings for our various sector tables (including oil and gas, and construction and infrastructure), economic development strategies for Iraq, and how higher education partnerships could be developed between the UK and Iraq. A biannual council meeting for representatives of our member organisations was also held.

Christophe Michels, Managing Director of the IBBC was happy with how the weekend went. “As in previous years the Retreat has attracted some of the finest minds from business, academia, politics, media and diplomacy working on Iraq to conduct truly meaningful and intimate discussions”.

Baroness Emma Nicholson, President of the IBBC and the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Iraq, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan said “IBBC has had a fantastically happy and hugely productive busy weekend. We call it a retreat, but I am not sure what it was a retreat from! People were working morning, noon, and night, and they were making great achievements, and huge strides in the various different table meetings…one of the best I can ever remember”.

For more information on the Iraq Britain Business Council, visit our website at https://iraqbritainbusiness.org/

To contact IBBC for Interviews, registration and sponsorship please contact [email protected]