5 minute read
President’s message
Looking forward -
Our “why” is our focus
As I enter my 10th year as Chamber president and CEO (where has the time gone?), it gives me reason to pause and reflect on both where we have been and where we are headed.
I suspect I’m like a lot of you in that I am always looking forward – which is an absolute must! But sometimes, we must stop and look around us at what we have accomplished and celebrate that as well. It is a must for us to report out to our boards of directors and other stakeholders as well as our hardworking staff members.
After 10 years at the Chamber, and an introspective look, I can say our mission statement – as we head into a new fiscal year starting Sept. 1 – is relevant and reflective of our goals and work. This is an important fact as our mission statement guides us, acting as a beacon we look to when assessing whether to add something new or in reevaluating an existing program for its continued relevance. On the flip side, our vision statement is – as vision statements are intended to be – more aspirational. It’s like this article: a focus on looking to the future and anticipating what we need to do as the state’s second largest chamber of commerce to serve all our members. I can assure that, as we plan for my 10th fiscal year with the Chamber, we are listening to what you are telling us you need and working hard to fill any gaps. Our assessment process always begins with that simple but powerful question, “Why?”
As we prepare to celebrate the Chamber’s 139th Annual Dinner, we posed that question as part of our planning process for it. Given what we have endured – and overcome – this past year and a half, we wanted this year’s Annual Dinner to be a celebration for our community. To that end, it will be even more of a celebration with the Brass Differential band; after the formal awards program, we will kick up our heels alongside you, celebrating the grit, resiliency and tenacity it has taken all of us to reach where we are. Something that has become very apparent to me through my tenure at the Chamber is how collaborative and caring our community is; we want to take this night to simply unite and celebrate.
As I look to the new fiscal year, there is so much for us to celebrate as a Chamber. In late fall, we will provide an update to the powerful and action-oriented Greater Green Bay Economic Development Strategic Plan. We also are in the thick of work with the first cohort of The Blueprint Green Bay, powered by the Chamber and New North. This accelerator program is geared to minority-, women- and veteran-owned businesses and entrepreneurs to encourage, and retain, innovative new businesses in the Greater Green Bay area. We recognize startups are an integral part of our economic development, and these entrepreneurs are a fundamental piece of that alongside continuing to bolster use of our Startup Hub (the front door to the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Greater Green Bay) and the Urban Hub co-working space and entrepreneur- focused programming. In that same vein, our Tundra Angels angel investor group is helping to make entrepreneurs’ dreams a reality by infusing much-needed capital into several startup businesses.
On our talent forefront, we are excited to expand the work in our talent and education programming, something we had the forethought to add to our mission statement in the inclusion of the phrasing “workforce development” about 10 years ago. For the coming year, that will include building on our Youth Apprenticeship (YA) program by adding a second Youth Apprenticeship manager to serve even more businesses seeking YA students.
Vision
The Greater Green Bay Chamber will be acclaimed as a leader in building prosperous businesses and a thriving community.
We clearly understand that talent is top of mind for everyone – recruiting, retaining and developing alike – and expanding our program is fundamental to further building a pipeline of employees for business.
We are also excited to unveil a very researchdriven talent attraction brand for Greater Green Bay. This entailed out-of-state and instate surveying as well as extensive input and feedback locally. It is no small feat to capture and share the story of our entire community, but after much painstaking work, we have created a brand for Greater Green Bay and the first outgrowth of it, a talent attraction website.
Time and again, we have heard from local employers who ask how to market the community to job seekers so they will consider Greater Green Bay for their next career move. As employers recruit talent from all over the world, they need a strategy for selling the community in addition to their company. On Sept. 8, we will unveil the Greater Green Bay brand and website as part of a day highlighting the growing need for talent, updating the community on new initiatives and continuing the conversation as a region during our first-ever Talent Day. The intent of Talent Day is to raise awareness of the challenges employers face and have a community conversation about solving the problem. We will welcome Chris Czarnik, an award-winning international speaker on talent, hiring and employee development, a hands-on workshop for the manufacturing industry and a community conversation on talent. All of these tie back strongly to the Chamber’s “why.”
Aligned with the Greater Green Bay brand is a purposeful effort to align our services and programming for talent development and retention. The Greater Green Bay Concierge program is a great example of that as our director of talent works side by side with employers to help secure their top candidates and provide valuable community integration assistance.
In our membership space, we have proactively added value to your membership and help fulfill members’ desire for learning and development through a variety of new offerings and opportunities. These include our Chamber Membership Academy, Chamber Book Club, Council on Foreign Relations and the (BYO) Lunch With Legislators, all new offerings this fiscal year. Among other things, these offer opportunities to engage in the exchange of information and ideas, to discover insights on leadership, to proactively relationship build and positively discuss issues of the day with elected officials and to create better links to our national and regional economies. And membership provides the gateway to accessing all these particularly relevant and timely opportunities to expand our horizons. Read on in the membership section of this issue to learn more specifics about these offerings.
The common denominator in all these examples and many others: They all refer to living our why. I am as passionate about living our why in the 2021-2022 fiscal year as every other and look forward to continuing to lead and serve you, our members.
