Dear ABC Members and friends,
as communicated in our Ocotber Newsflash the new helm at the Austrian Trade Commission in South Africa is Mr. Martin Meischl. We hereby extend our warm welcome to Mr. Meischl and wish him all the best. A writeup of his intro to our members can be found here
Dear (past & future) friends, colleagues and business partners,
It gives me great pleasure and honour to introduce myself to the readers of the ABC Newsflash as the new Austrian Trade Commissioner for Southern Africa.
I am arriving from our headquarters in Vienna, where I served as the Regional Manager for Western- & Central Europe over the past 2.5 years. This is my second stint in South Africa. Some might still know me from my previous post as Stefan Pistauer’s deputy in the years 2005 – 2008. A lot has changed since – but my desire to return to Africa remained. I am pleased that on the 1st of August I was able to take over the reigns at Advantage Austria Johannesburg from my predecessor Johannes Brunner.
Under “normal” circumstances, we would have had a so-called “Übergabe Cocktail” where Johannes could have bid his farewell and I would have introduced myself to all of you personally. Unfortunately, these are not normal times and we have to make the best of these challenging situations.
The COVID crisis has had an impact on all our lives that few could have imagined. Nevertheless, this is now the time to learn from it and use the experiences of these difficult times to look forward.
In the first two months as the new Trade Commissioner, we already hosted 2 webinars with more than 250 Austrian participants, assisted many Austrian business people in obtaining special permits to travel to South Africa and continued our “daily” duties of identifying business opportunities for our companies in Southern Africa.
I am optimistic that we will soon be able to meet in person. Together with the highly motivated team of Advantage Austria Johannesburg, I look forward to working with all members of the Austrian Business Chamber to bring Austria and Southern Africa even closer together.
Martin Meischl
The Austrian Trade Commissioner for Southern Africa