Clinton Urling on a mission to burnish German’s profile, support private sector growth

Clinton Urling
Clinton Urling

Following a period of physical absence from Guyana, owner of one of the country’s most iconic eateries and former President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), Clinton Urling has reappeared on the local business radar. During a lengthy engagement with the Stabroek Business over the weekend, Urling disclosed that his objectives, going forward, are twofold. First, he is pursuing the diversification of the entrepreneurial interests of German’s, famous over the years as a typical working class local ‘eating house’ that had earned a reputation for its soups which, over time, successfully expanded its clientele. German’s aside, Urling’s other interest – apart from seeking out other investment opportunities – is to support the business community, through the Private Sector Commission (PSC) in securing business support tools currently available through international business support institutions.

Clinton, one of two brothers whose emergence on the local entrepreneurial scene eventually metamorphosed into his eye-catching tenure as head of the GCCI, accomplished two significant tasks during his emergence as one of its younger standout leaders. First, the profile that he acquired as Chairman of the GCCI added to the broader recognition which the Chamber attracted to the business community, as a whole. Simultaneously, Urling’s  success in ‘refining’ the image of German’s to cause it rise above its original ‘workingman’ image to come to be seen as a more universally appealing eating house, over time, got the attention of the broader urban Guyanese community. These, arguably, were among the primary hallmarks of Clinton’s emergence as a standout young business leader.

What Clinton can also claim some measure of success for was the role that German’s played in altering what had long been the ‘seedy,’ foreboding image of ‘Tiger Bay’, the place where German’s had ‘set up shop’. Here it can be argued that with Urling at the helm as CEO of German’s, he made a significant contribution to adjusting the local ‘eating out’ culture by helping to smother what, up to that time, was Tiger Bay’s ‘seedy’ image. When the Stabroek Business visited the ‘Tiger Bay’ premises of German’s over the weekend we found Urling busy transforming the aesthetics of the community, overseeing various assignments linked to what he told the Stabroek Business was the further enhancement of the ‘face’ of German’s.

If, going forward, Germans’ soups will endure as the establishment’s standard bearer, Urling is envisaging a broader, more universally appealing entrepreneurial profile that does not leave its  trademark soups behind. When the Stabroek Business spoke with Clinton earlier this week he made no secret of the fact that while his late father’s ‘Hubert’s soups’ can never be erased from the establishment’s institutional memory, the face of German’s, over time, will be remembered for further profound entrepreneurial undertakings in the Tiger Bay community, discourses on the details of which, he told the Stabroek Business, is for ‘another time.’

Urling did, however, ‘let on’ about his intention, going forward, to enhance the oil-driven attention that Guyana is currently attracting on the back of what is now the global popularization of its oil wealth, not least the attraction that the country has now secured as an investment haven. German’s is not Urling’s sole current preoccupation. Since his return to Guyana he has (apart from expanding his entrepreneurial interests) been lending much of his time to supporting the leadership of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) in helping to fashion a template for the creation of an enhanced operating model for the Business Support Organization (BSO) that is best suited to its mission.

Against that backdrop, Clinton has been busying himself in discourses relating to how a financial support undertaking initiated by the Inter -American Development Bank (IDB)) to create a Business Support Desk (BSD) can best be utilized. In broad terms the aim of the IDB support mechanism is to increase the capacity of Guyanese business houses to access both financing and training in the creation of business plans, financial statements, requirements that are essential for the growth of those enterprises. The specific objectives of the BSD are envisioned as: (i) enhancing business readiness for access to finance; (ii) risk mitigation strategies to reduce lending risks for banks; (iii) capacity building for firms to be able to access commercial financing; and (iv) facilitate collaboration between private sector, donors and financial institutions.

The entrepreneurial ‘bit’ now firmly between his teeth, Urling told the Stabroek Business that he had embarked on a multi-pronged mission focusing on assignments that enhance the effectiveness of BSOs. Simultaneously, Urling has embarked on taking German’s image into vistas of entrepreneurship that extend beyond what had been envisaged when the workingmen’s ‘eating house’ was created in the first place.