Mr Gilbert said unfortunately those successes do not appear that "sexy" to the public but were an integral part of moving the city forward.
He claimed the new chief executive has big shoes to fill, but will be able to take a more prominent role in the city.
"Having the strategy worked out, we can now get somebody who I would call a more normal chief executive," he said.
"Someone who is capable of managing a team, capable of managing the commercial side and who can also deal with the press and the media and to a limited degree become the Mr Birmingham that everyone is apparently clamouring for, but that's the bit I'm uncomfortable with. You can take a personality but we don't want someone who is a good talker but is incapable of doing the job that we want to fill."
One criticism of the chief executive role was that it did not pay extremely well - in the region of £70,000 - and to attract good candidates the salary would have to be higher. In yesterday's advertisement, the job carried an increased salary of £100,000.
Mr Gilbert said that he had already been approached by several people interested in the job and had been encouraged by their qualities. Those qualities will have to help promote Birmingham as one of Europe's great cities, alongside Barcelona, Paris and Rome.
"We are now the second most visited city in the country so we have a tourist industry and people might knock it but we have one employing 35,000 people and that wasn't the case a few years back," he said.
The future of Marketing Birmingham firmly depends on who Mr Gilbert and his 80-strong board and advisory panel, who he cannot praise enough for their time and effort, find for the chief executive's role, but he also believes the people of Birmingham have a responsibility to promote their city.
"My dream would be, and we achieve it on odd occasions, that we could get the citizens of Birmingham to take pride in their city," he lamented. "It happens too infrequently and it certainly happened in 1998 when we had the G8 summit and the Eurovision Song Contest and the Lions, but we soon forget that. We need to have more of that sort of event.
"I don't think a Brummie has enough pride in the city. I want to convert them and get Brummies to be ambassadors of the city.
"I don't think we need a big hitter as big hitters in my experience are usually only interested in their own personal ego and what comes out of it."
