More than eight months after the departure of former president and CEO Natalie Masri, the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce is launching a committee to find its next leader.
Ahead of the first CEO search committee meeting on August 26, CRCC Board Chair Sasha Tripp spoke with C-VILLE about the hiring process and the chamber more broadly.
CRCC is a membership-based organization that works to connect and advocate for Charlottesville businesses, and is comprised of a volunteer board of directors and salaried, four-person professional staff.
“We try to cater our resources, our events, our networking, our ribbon-cutting, all that stuff, towards the members specifically,” said Tripp. “We don’t necessarily have the bandwidth to service every single business and business owner in the Charlottesville area, but for people who are members, we do everything we can to provide resources for them to make it easier to get their business up and running, to keep their business running.”
Beyond member services, the CRCC also holds regular networking and community events, including State of the Community, which looks at developments in the city, Albemarle County, and at the University of Virginia.
“We watch and see if there is a hot topic that’s going on politically or out in the community that is tied to businesses being able to thrive or grow or hire or remain competitive, and we try to advocate for those issues,” said Tripp. “For a thriving local economy, we’ve got to take these business positions to help our small business owners and then help some of these larger entities that are trying to be good community stewards. … We’re trying to be the voice of business in Charlottesville.”
Since the December departure of Masri, who lasted less than seven months, Tripp and other CRCC leaders have been working to address the logistical needs of the chamber before bringing on a new president—including selling the CRCC building at 209 Fifth St. NE.
“We had been talking on and off about selling the chamber building for, I think, seven years now,” said Tripp. “We wanted a new executive to be able to come in and focus on big picture and strategy.”
The seven-person CEO search committee includes area leaders like Mayor Juandiego Wade and Rita Bunch, the outgoing president of Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital (see story on page 9). With the departure of Bunch from SMJH on September 13, Tripp anticipates adding another local leader to the committee to ensure an odd number of members.
A timeline shared by the CRCC indicates the CEO search committee will begin active recruitment in late September, with a goal of hiring a new president between January 1 and 15.
During the hiring process, Tripp and other board members will focus on advancing the group’s key projects—including the sale of the building and keeping engaged with the Charlottesville community.