4 | Perimeter Business
Facebook.com/TheReporterNewspapers ■ twitter.com/Reporter_News
Perimeter Business A monthly section focusing on business in the Reporter Newspapers communities
Consulates help small businesses cross international borders BY JOHN RUCH johnruch@reporternewspapers.net
The Indian government consulate for the Southeast, operating from a mansion on Sandy Springs’ Glenridge Drive, has the standard passport and visa office. But the main reason the consulate opened shop there in 2012 was to do business. The northern Perimeter area has 13 foreign government consulates, and many more unofficial “honorary consulates,” that play a little-known but key role in helping small businesses do international deals. “I jokingly say Sandy Springs is the only city with its own foreign policy, because we do have a significant number of consulates here,” said Sandy Springs Mayor Rusty Paul. Countries with consulates in Paul’s city include India, Colombia, Costa Rica and Nigeria. And it’s not an accident—Paul’s predecessor, the late Mayor Eva Galambos, pushed hard to convince the Indian consulate to open in Sandy Springs. “Eva’s mindset, and it certainly still drives me today, is the world is no longer insular,” said Paul. “You’ve got to be able to look beyond your borders…If you’re not forming relationships around the world, you’re getting left in the dust.” Nagesh Singh, India’s consul general in Atlanta, said his country had business on its mind, too. “As the Southeast started emerging as
for example, frequently works with the Buckhead-based Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which represents mostly large corporations, and the Latin American Chamber of Commerce of Georgia, which represents mostly small businesses. Conexx, a private LEFT, CITY OF SANDY SPRINGS; RIGHT, CONSULATE GENERAL OF MEXICO, ATLANTA America-Israel busiAt left, Indian Consul General Nagesh Singh, left, receives a proclamation from Sandy Springs ness networking orMayor Rusty Paul last year. Right, from left, Javier Díaz de León, consul general, Consulate General of México in Atlanta, and Juan Perez and Gabriel Vaca, both with UPS, attend the ganization serving the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s Membership Meeting on September 21. Southeast, frequently works on Perimeter a manufacturing hub…we started noticing small companies navigate rules, regulabusiness connections. the growth here,” he said of the choice of a tions and tax systems. And it goes both di“Basically, it’s a triangle,” said Conexx Sandy Springs consulate. rections—foreign companies coming here, President Guy Tessler, describing the joint The booming Southeast economy also and vice versa. work among his organization, the Israegets the attention of countries that are al“The large corporations, the big boys, li consulate in Atlanta, and the Israeli govready longtime trading partners, such as have their own ways of doing that,” Díaz ernment’s Economic Mission in New York Mexico, the second-biggest international said. “But we do help a lot of medium [and] City. Working together, he said, they can efbuyer of Georgia goods. Mexico has long small businesses.” ficiently find the proper business partners had a metro Atlanta consulate, now operMultinational companies like Coca-Coamong the hundreds or thousands availating from Chantilly Drive, just across I-85 la and UPS also connect with the consulable in the U.S. and Israeli economies. from Brookhaven and Buckhead. ates, the consul generals said, but more for That “triangle” recently went to work in “It’s no secret the Atlanta region has bedirect talks about government policy rathcreating an innovative Sister City relationcome a multicultural and diverse market,” er than nitty-gritty business help. ship between Sandy Springs and the Westsaid Javier Díaz de Léon, Mexico’s consul While the consulates act as a resource ern Galilee Cluster, a group of local governgeneral and a Sandy Springs resident. for business information, they don’t do it Díaz and Singh said their consulates’ alone. They often work with internationContinued on page 9 business work usually involves helping al or cultural business associations. Díaz,
INVITES YOU TO JOIN US FOR LUNCH WITH:
DIETMAR EXLER, CEO MERCEDES-BENZ USA 10/11/2016 | 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM WESTIN ATLANTA PERIMETER NORTH
MEMBER: $40 | NON-MEMBER: $45 | TABLE (8): $320 *REGISTRATION ENDS OCT 7TH BY 5PM REGISTER @ SANDYSPRINGSPERIMETERCHAMBER.COM
October Breakfast
With Atlanta Hawks GM Wes Wilcox & EVP, Real Estate CFO Thad Sheely
Full Breakfast ♦ Networking ♦ Prize Drawings Tuesday - October 4th / 7:30am-9am Oglethorpe University – Turner Lynch Campus Center Gold Sponsor Gold Sponsors Silver SponsorsSilver Sponsor Bronze Bronze Sponsor Sponsor Galardi South Enterprises Brookhaven
Reporter
Register at: www.biz.brookhavencommerce.org/events Register at: www.biz.brookhavencommerce.org/events
Fees/Admission: Fees/Admissions:$10 for members in advance $10 for members in advance $15 for non-members in advance $15 for non-members in advance $20 at door $20 at door →Pre-Registration Cut off – September 30th – 4:00 PM ←
gPre-Registration Cut off — September 30th — 4:00 PMf