One of your first goals as CEO was to
conduct a SWOT analysis of the Cham-
ber — what key strengths, weakness-
es, opportunities and threats did you
identify through that process?
How a chamber is viewed has just changed
over time. It was very true that when you
were getting your business license, the
next thing you did was join your cham-
ber of commerce. That was your business
organization to get you networked, to help
you understand the region, to get the land-
scape. With all of the technology, the way
people are connecting with LinkedIn and
with Meetup and with social media, your
ability to network has totally changed. So
[a chamber] really has to position itself as
providing value in a really unique and spe-
cific way to its business members.
We have this 124-year-old history. The
challenge of having a lengthy tenure in
the community is you’re trying to be all
things to all people all the time, and you
just can’t. You’re not going to be effective
in 50 different things. We just complet-
ed [a strategic planning] process, which
has culminated in our ‘4-Point Business
Promise’ that focuses on four strategic ar-
eas of strong business, connected region,
ready workforce and vibrant communi-
ty. So it’s really being able to holistically
look at those four things and say: Is our
effort aligned with those four things so
we’re not all things to all people? That
lens has been able to give us the platform
to align all of our programming, all of
our effort, all of our staff focus, all of our
external relationships to these four key
points, and to create momentum and
impact within those areas, and get out of
a space of doing things just because you’ve
done them or because somebody wants
that or the chambers traditionally have
done that. Hey, if we’re not at our highest
and best in [a particular] space, we need
to make room for someone else to take
that work.
The Chamber has 1,400 members
across the six-county Sacramento re-
gion. How does your organization meet
The challenge of having a
lengthy tenure in the community
is you’re trying to be all things to all
people all the time, and you just can’t.
You’re not going to be effective in 50
different things.”
the needs of all its members, while also
maintaining its focus?
It’s challenging because it is broad —
and we have 600 members in our Metro
EDGE young professionals program. We
have our ‘4-Point Business Promise’ that
is our guiding post to align to. If one of
our rural partners is having a challenge
and one of our urban partners is having
a challenge, might we be able to vet it
through this framework to say: What uni-
versal metrics are we trying to move by
tackling this? It’s not the one-off, industry-
by-industry-specific challenge — it’s col-
lectively, what can we do that’s going to
move everybody? For instance, we’ve got
rural partners [who want] to use technolo-
gy in their fields. We’ve got our downtown
folks that are having conversations about
autonomous vehicles. We’re hearing both
these things and at the core of that is: This
is a 5G issue. You don’t have access to the
infrastructure you need to be able to solve
the problems within your field. So if we
advocate for the infrastructure, it is just
as beneficial to our urban partners as it
is to our suburban partners as it is to our
rural partners, and we can universally
create impact.
What do you foresee as the main policy
items on the agenda for the 49th annu-
al Cap-to-Cap in May?
It all goes back to our ‘4-Point Business
Promise.’ Our board spent thousands of
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