For over 150 years the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce has supported, connected and represented businesses of all sizes in Sheffield, our vibrant and innovative city.
The Sheffield International Trade Centre was opened in 2003 as a partnership between Barnsley & Rotherham, Doncaster and Sheffield Chambers to provide a heightened level of international trade services to members of the South Yorkshire Chambers.
This partnership continues and is growing stronger with many joint events across not only international trade, but the wider chamber services providing a strong collaborative voice for all businesses in South Yorkshire.
What do you do at ChamberCustoms?
The ChamberCustoms team at Sheffield Chamber are Elliot Richards, Rachael Page, Yulia Briscoe and Nick Patrick.
Elliot and Rachael are dealing with most clearances on a daily basis, Yulia is supporting them when necessary and concentrating more on compliance and business development.
Nick is the main knowledge source, idea generator, business developer and firefighter when it comes to complicated issues. Nick’s favourite question is “How many declarations have you done today?”
In total, there are 6 fantastic people working in international trade and together we have about 106 years of direct international trade experience.
What’s your favourite part of your job?
It is very rewarding to help companies to keep on trading. We all have great relationships with the customers and are ready to support them even during out-of-office times. We also love the variety of tasks, people, systems, and goods we come across every day. There is not a dull day with so much fun going on!
We love to visit companies and get to know them and their business, the personal relationship is critical to our customer service drive.
What’s the biggest misconception people have about customs clearance?
That it’s easy and everyone can do it. We often have long, honest conversations with the international trade teams in businesses and it can be very striking as to how much they do not know, particularly regarding their responsibilities as an exporter and/or importer of record.
What advice would you give a business which is considering exporting overseas?
The No. 1 piece of advice must be to join your local Chamber. The Chamber network in the UK has a deep, wide and very professional resource, complicated questions can always be answered, the network has incredible lobbying power and of course, our global business network extends the reach and assistance to over 75 global markets. The network’s International training capability is second to none.
What do you enjoy doing when you’re not working?
When out of office life Elliot is a professional dive coach and a season ticket holder for Sheffield Steelers ice hockey team. Rachael is a black belt in martial arts and therefore is the office security officer! Yulia is busy renovating her new house, is a number 1 customer of Amazon and loves to read or walk her dog, Nick spends his time messing around in boats or in extremis, helps with the horses!
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?
‘When you employ someone, you hire their arms, legs and eyes. But they have to bring their brains to work, so now you have a workforce. But they also have to bring their heart and when you have their heart, you have a team’
If you could choose a superpower, what would it be?
Across the team: Teleportation, time travel, lottery number soothsayer and to be able to eat loads of cake without getting fat!
