TEI in action.

• Author: Lucchesi, Janice
• Position: Tax Executives Institute - President's page

One of the privileges of serving as TEI's international president is having the opportunity to visit chapter leaders and members in different parts of the world--in short, to watch TEI in action. So, just before the holidays, I was delighted to lead a delegation of members and staff to our Asia Chapter, where, over two weeks, we visited India, Singapore, and China. Our journey was designed to help TEI's global membership recruitment campaign, Access Granted, raise TEI's profile in India as well as strengthen existing relationships throughout the region. On every score, I believe our trip was a success.

Our visit to India featured Institute participation in formal information sessions and informal networking to educate prospective members about TEI and allowed our participation as speakers at the fifteenth annual Foundation for International Taxation conference. There, I joined Clive Baxter (Maersk, EMEA Chapter) and Eli Dicker (TEI's Executive Director) in discussing TEI's role as a stakeholder organization in the context of TEI's responses to the OECD's BEPS project. I was extremely proud to share insights with the 500 attendees about how advocacy gets done "the TEI way," as well as to discuss the scope of our submission output.

Mission to India

Our mission to India was designed to build on and accelerate prior efforts to assess the viability of a TEI presence there as part of TEI's Asia Chapter. Through direct dialogue with conference attendees, speakers, and sponsors, as well as by sharing TEI's member-focused "value proposition" with conference attendees, I believe we have sown seeds for future expansion into India. Without question India represents a growth opportunity, in recognition of the broad range of in-house professionals working there for wholly domestic businesses and subsidiary operations of multinational enterprises. The opportunities exist, as evidenced by the interest in TEI membership, but, as with all nascent efforts to build a TEI presence anywhere in the world, the critical factor will be in-house "boots on the ground," professionals committed to organizing meetings, coordinating programs, and otherwise tending to the critical nuts and bolts of building a TEI presence.

Journey to Singapore

The next leg of our journey brought us to Singapore, where we met with Chapter leaders and members at the offices of Ernst & Young to discuss tax developments around the world and, yes, you guessed it, explore the U.S. election...