Anita Huberman’s position as CEO of the business lobby organization for B.C.’s second most populous city gives her a lot of influence.
She oversees eight staff, 400 volunteers and a budget of nearly $1 million.
Huberman has been a Surrey Board of Trade employee since she graduated from Simon Fraser University with a bachelor of arts in communications in 1996.
Since ascending to become CEO in 2007, Huberman has showed initiative by creating new awards programs such as the annual Surrey Women in Business awards.
She also embarked on the board of trade’s first trade mission to a foreign country when she joined 80 Surrey business people on a trip to China in 2007.
As the first south Asian woman to head a Canadian municipality’s board of trade, Huberman followed up the China trip with a trade mission to India along with 25 business people in April.
That trip facilitated seven memorandums of understanding to be signed so far. She is planning a trade mission next year to Brazil.
“The solid international trade portfolio has been one of my greatest accomplishments,” she said. “I also helped build an international trade centre. I went to consulate offices and created relationships that no one has had in the board of trade and chamber industry in B.C. Those relationships resulted in a formal letter of understanding to partner together in different trade opportunities.”
Under Huberman’s stewardship, the board of trade has grown from 1,200 members to 1,500. She has also embarked on programs to make those members more active.
For example, she transformed government advocacy from being a single team covering all issues to having seven separate teams that include 400 volunteers.
Outside of work she is a director of the Surrey Foundation, which raises money to give to not-for-profit organizations. •
