The Chartered Institute of Export & International Trade is proud to have supported businesses and customs professionals to grow through trade for the past 90 years, and equally proud of those who have contributed to those efforts.
To mark our recent birthday, we spoke to former Chartered Institute education board chairman Tony Symes, a member for over half a century, who’s witnessed the development of trade through the second half of the twentieth century alongside the organisation’s growth.
Career longevity
Symes began his career as an “office boy” in an export confirming house after completing commercial school in 1949. It was a chance opportunity that came his way when his father – a gentleman’s outfitter – tailored a suit to a business’ director.
Operating towards the end of the British Empire, Symes says the house managed orders on behalf of firms across a number of now-Commonwealth countries: Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the West Indies.
After completing his national service in the RAF, Symes returned to the world of international trade and built a career that would see him educate subsequent generations of freight forwarders and customs professionals, eventually becoming the chairman of the Chartered Institute’s education committee.
Shipping shift
Asked to reflect on changes to the world of trade and customs over the course of his career, Symes says he’s been “very, very lucky to have been around at a time where there's been such vast change”.
One of the most seismic shifts, he says, was the advent of ‘containerisation’ in shipping.
Before standardised containers for transporting goods were introduced in the 1950s, all goods were individually loaded into the hold of a ship and removed when they reached their destination, a cumbersome, time-consuming process.
This applied to “any item, any size, length, whatever it was”, Symes says, “it was very labour intensive”.
The lego-like container units we now see stacked on shipping vessels and freight transport – emblems of the industry – dramatically increased efficiency. Storing all goods in 20-foot or 40-foot containers during transit facilitated a standardised process for moving them, rather than a targeted approach for each type of good. As well as the obvious time and cost savings, goods were much less likely to be damaged.
“I would say that it’s a revolution from what had been going on for centuries, which was the old great bulk method of shipping.”
Gender norms
Another revolutionary shift over the course of a decades-long career was in the gender balance of those he worked with and taught.
International trade was “very male-dominated” when he entered the sector in the late 1940s. The gender split between roles was iron-clad: “Men were clerks, ladies were typists,” he recalls.
Towards the end of the twentieth century this began to change, and “you started to see – even in big companies – the women going into managerial roles, taking charge of the department”.
Discussing his involvement educating exporters about new simplified trading rules ahead of the UK entering the single market in the late eighties, he smiles as he remembers the most engaged section of his audience:
“It started off quite male-dominated, but as we got going more and more women were coming in.
“Now they were the ones with questions: ‘Could you clarify this?’ or ‘What’s going to happen with that?’”
Symes says the trend endured as he taught his own export classes, with “more women coming in to do the course than men”.
Education
As we launch our Approved Customs Practitioner standard to validate customs competence among trade professionals, Symes reflects on an educational initiative he supported almost 50 years ago.
Having taken on the role of editor in 1966 for Croner’s Reference Book for Exporters – an “exporters Bible” designed to help professionals navigate the industry – Symes became part of a coalitions of organisations, including the Chartered Institute, that created a professional exam for exporters.
Spearheaded by the then-Department for Employment, the Foundation Course of Overseas Trade became the first standardised assessment of shipping and customs proficiency in the UK. The Approved Customs Practitioner standard and formal education programmes for trade professionals are “the babies” of the foundation course, Symes says.
He says that the progress that has been made towards professionalising trade is “very exciting”, with an incredible range of educational opportunities available to those in the sector. He compared the “100-odd graduates at the [Chartered Institute] graduation ball last month” with the past, when “we were lucky if we had 20 students that we would award”.
Membership
For his many contributions to international trade, Symes was awarded an honorary fellowship from the Chartered Institute in 2005 – still framed and hanging up in his home.
He says he’s been a member of the Chartered Institute since the late 1950s, having joined in order to learn and network during one of his early career roles.
Today, post-retirement, he still keeps up with industry news. An avid Daily Update reader, Symes especially likes customs round-ups.
“Anything to do with customs? I always go to that.”
Asked what’s kept him engaged with the organisation for over half a century, he says that contributing to and now observing what the Chartered Institute is achieving is “absolutely amazing”.
“When I started as an office boy, the Chartered Institute had one person, working out of Highgate.
“From there, it’s just gotten bigger and better.”
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