Some 150 people including senior business and political leaders attended the inaugural City Talk at the Chairmans Lounge at Panthers on 5^th June.

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The City Talk is a Penrith City Council event with Penrith Business Alliance (PBA) assisting in arranging the speaker for the Talk.

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The VIPs included the Hon. David Bradbury, Senator Marise Payne, the Deputy Premier Andrew Stoner MP, Stuart Ayres MP, Bart Bassett MP and Tanya Davies MP and the Lord Mayor of Parramatta, Clr Lorraine Wearne. The Chairman of the PBA was the Master of Ceremony for the function with Mayor, Clr Greg Davies, officially welcoming the guests and the speaker, Toby Compton, all the way from Tennessee, USA.

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The excitement for the City Talk has been building for the past 2 months, since the announcement that Mr Compton will be talking about State – Local Government relationships and the success of the Nashville Healthcare industry. He is an appointee of the Governor of Tennessee and advises the Government on economic and business development matters. Mr Compton arrived in Penrith on Monday and besides delivering the talk he has met with senior officials from the University of Western Sydney, Nepean Hospital, Sydney Medical School, Nepean and Council to discuss how the Tennessee Government has worked with counties such as Nashville to drive and incentivise economic development and recruit new businesses.

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As the chief guest at the Talk, Mr Stoner commended the PBA and Council on their efforts to globally position Penrith and the recent success of the PBA business delegation to China and Korea. Mr Stoner informed that he has provided a copy of the report prepared by the PBA on the outcomes of the visit to the Government’s Multicultural Advisory Panel.

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In his welcome address, the Mayor also informed the audience of the Rowing World Cup to be held at the Regatta Centre in 2013 and 2014 and the proposal for the PBA and the event organisers to work in partnership to develop a program to maximize the opportunities for local businesses from the World Cup.

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Toby Compton spoke about the various economic development strategies developed by the Government, focusing on infrastructure, education and training, the incentivisation program and raising capital from the bond market to finance major community and commercial projects. He also elaborated on the successes of the Nashville Healthcare Council in building one of the world’s largest and most successful healthcare clusters.

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Globally, Nashville’s healthcare industry generates more than US$70 billion in annual
revenue and accounts for 400,000 employees.

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Toby believes that there are many similarities between Nashville and Penrith with the City having a lot of assets that will become valuable over the years. He is keen to see a relationship form between Penrith and Nashville.

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The Chief Executive Officer of the PBA, Bijai Kumar, said that “Toby’s presentation could not have come at a better time. The PBA will be extensively involved both in the development of the Werrington Innovation Campus as well as exploring new pathways for attracting developer interest in the Penrith CBD.”

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Mr Kumar also said that the PBA will continue to maintain a close relationship with Toby and Nashville and plans are already underway to hold a video hook-up with local interested parties on models used by Tennessee to fund major projects.”

The Deputy Premier speaking at the City Talk

Toby with local MPs at the Talk - Tanya Davies MP, Bart Bassett MP and Stuart Ayres MP

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 8th, 2012 at 2:14 pm and is filed under PBA News.
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