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Through the floor-to-ceiling windows in his north-east facing office on the 25th floor of a building in the heart of Las Condes, Javier Irarrazavál, AmCham’s new president and Managing Director of The Walt Disney Company for the Andean region, has one of Santiago’s best views of the Andes Mountains. Up in the air, surrounded by Mickey Mouse ears and cartoons, his office celebrates the power of imagination. But the Disney executive’s feet are firmly on the ground – he takes the bus to work and knows from experience that Chile has room to improve in areas like intellectual property protection and innovation.

Elected president of AmCham in January, replacing Ricardo García, Irarrazavál sat down with bUSiness CHILE to discuss AmCham’s strategic plan and how the Chamber plans to offer its members more value.

What was the result of AmCham’s recent annual strategic planning session?

We hired an external consultant to facilitate the strategic planning process and I now have a clear roadmap that includes key initiatives and strategies as well as areas for improvement. Now it’s up to our management team to execute this agenda. We will focus on networking and continue to work on intellectual property, double taxation, energy and sustainability. We already work closely with the state of California and we have identified other states like Florida with potential to increase trade.

Another priority for AmCham is making sure we, as a country, take full advantage of the special visas for Chilean professionals who want to spend up to six months working in the U.S. Currently only about 200 of the 1,400 visas available annually are being used, which is a shame because of the lost opportunities. If that many professionals went to work in the U.S., imagine all the new ideas, contacts and business opportunities they could bring back. 

What about the Visa Waiver program’s potential to increase travel?

This program will be one of the most important aspects of the Chile-U.S. relationship in the next two years. Chile’s visa application rejection rate needs to be reduced from 5% to less than 3% and AmCham can help by educating Chileans in how to properly manage the visa process.

The Visa Waiver program will increase the number of Chileans going to the U.S. for work and will help towards Chile’s goal of becoming a developed country. It will improve our competitiveness and level of English, which is a key issue. You do more business with a culture you know better and that happens by moving people.

How important is intellectual property for AmCham?

It remains on our agenda as one of the FTA conditions that have not been fulfilled. Chile has come a long way in the last few years to fight piracy and the government has taken important steps, but there are still steps that need to be executed. The good news is Chile is working on this and it will improve. AmCham will continue to support the government to conclude the process successfully. Nobody wants Chile to stay on the ‘blacklist’ [Office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s list of countries not protecting intellectual property adequately].

Your company, Disney, has a special interest in this issue…

We live on intellectual property so any improvement in that area will help us. Compared to other countries in the region, Chile is among the best but we are still the worst country in the OECD in terms of protection. If we want to be a developed country, we have to compare ourselves with the best. There is a saying: “In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” We shouldn’t compare ourselves to the blind.

Is intellectual property an obstacle to trade?

Intellectual property is not just about paying the owner, it’s also about trust. You will invest where you trust your counterpart. By being on the blacklist we are holding back investment from the U.S. Intellectual property is not a short-term barrier to trade, but it is a serious issue because intellectual property allows for innovation, entrepreneurship and competitiveness. We are a very small country competing in a globalized world and copper will not always be over US$4. There are over 2,000 companies exporting to the U.S. How much potential is there for growth and job creation to help Chile become a developed economy?

How can AmCham promote innovation?

We can use our infrastructure to offer members examples of best innovation practices by sharing the stories of U.S. entrepreneurs here on business or vacation. Whether the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or a small business owner, we can invite them to speak at an AmCham event.

The main obstacle to innovation in Chile is cultural. Failure is strongly punished in our society but most entrepreneurs will fail again and again before they finally succeed. Walt Disney Company would not exist if Walt had been Chilean. He went bankrupt twice before launching Disney Bros at the age of 23. In Chile you go on DICOM [Chile's main credit bureau] and then it’s very difficult. The U.S. has a pro-innovation culture, which is why it has the most number of patents registered each year. People have to be allowed to fail or there will be no innovation. AmCham cannot change this culture on our own but we can start by helping our members.

What about improving Chile’s level of English?

Business with the U.S. will only increase if our language skills improve. How do we do that? We have to use all our resources. There is the Great Corporate Debate and the donation of English-language novels to mark Chile’s Bicentenary but there are other ways to promote English. The opportunities in the U.S. for Chileans to learn English far exceed the demand. We can help students apply for work-study programs by improving our website.

How can AmCham better serve its members?

We have to find better ways of communicating with them. We need to use information technologies from Facebook to Twitter, as well as data-basing and data-mining, to help our members connect to each other and their U.S. counterparts. Whether they are an exporter, importer or service provider, we should be helping members do more business, which means providing accurate, valuable and timely information. AmCham’s Research Department has done a good job, but there are opportunities to package this information in a friendlier format.

We also need to focus our limited resources on those products and tools that our members value the most. Our customers are members because they believe we will help them do more business. Are we doing the best we can? There is always room to improve.

When your term as president ends, what would you like to have accomplished?

I hope our members will say “AmCham is really helping me do more business with the United States”. We also need to promote AmCham in the business community because many companies don’t know how we could help them. Business is not just about importing or exporting, it’s also about education, services, tourism, technology, innovation and best practices. In the end, it’s anything that improves business with the U.S.