This Women's Network event will offer an insightful conversation with Dr. Melissa Gilliam, the 11th President of Boston University and both the first woman and the first Black woman to lead the institution since its founding in 1869.
06/18/2025
11:30am - 1:00pm
Fairmont Copley Plaza
Join the Chamber and Massachusetts Business Roundtable for a deep dive into employer insights, featuring analysis from McKinsey and a panel of experts.
06/26/2025
11:00am - 12:00pm
Virtual
Join us for our installment of the Pacesetters Doing Business series featuring Mass General Brigham on June 26, 2025.
1:00pm - 2:00pm
This program is in redevelopment. Click this page for DEI resources.
Our Women’s Leadership Program enables you to take your leadership to the next level by arming you with the most in-demand leadership toolkit.
Our Boston’s Future Leaders (BFL) program provides emerging leaders with a socially conscious and civically engaged leadership toolkit, as well as the opportunity to apply their knowledge through experiential assignments.
Join us on June 12 for a highly interactive virtual workshop with Strategic Career & Leadership Coach Carole-Ann Penney.
City Awake empowers young professionals in a variety of ways that encourages these rising leaders to stay invested in the region’s future success.
We are developing an ecosystem of corporations and partners with the influence and buying power to transform economic inclusion for minority business enterprises (MBEs).
Small businesses are the backbone of the Boston economy. Learn more about the resources available through the Chamber.
BIMA (the Boston Interactive Media Association) serves a vibrant community of like-minded professionals from agencies, brands, publishers, and ad-tech companies with business interests in the New England market.
For over 30 years, the Chamber’s Women’s Network has connected female professionals of all background and career levels. Today, our Women’s Network is the largest in New England, strengthening the professional networks of women each year.
The Massachusetts Apprentice Network convenes employers, training providers, and talent sources interested in developing and implementing apprenticeship programs in occupations across industries and statewide in fields such as tech, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, financial services, and more.
Explore our mission and values to better understand how we are leading the business community forward.
Our member directory is your resource to discover, connect, and engage with Boston’s businesses from every industry and sector.
Dear Chamber Members,
We are writing you today to share the five-year diversity goals that our Board has unanimously voted on for the Chamber and to ask for your partnership.
As we reflect on the past year – the pandemic, our nation’s reckoning with centuries of racism, and the economic impact of these crises – we are compelled to ask what more we can do together to create economic opportunity and a more competitive region. As the convener of the business community, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce is in a unique position to lead and effect true change.
We have done so in several ways:
Today, we present a new challenge – to work toward representative leadership in our board rooms throughout our membership and the business community.
Our Chamber fully embraces the need for board diversity. The business case for a diverse board is clear: equity and inclusion are critical for our region’s economic growth and competitiveness. A board with appropriate representation of women and people of color is vital to business success. This is especially urgent as we rebuild a more resilient and equitable post-pandemic economy.
We began our own journey to create a more diverse Chamber Board of Directors in 2016. Over the course of five years, women on our Board increased from 23% to 40%, and people of color increased from 12% to 20%. Through intentional planning with our Board of Directors and after a unanimous vote earlier this month, we set new five-year goals and are holding ourselves accountable by making them public: a board that is 50% women, 17% Black, 10% Asian, and 10% Latinx by 2026.
We embrace the Chamber’s role in providing the tools, data, and oftentimes the push necessary to ensure that Boston’s business community leads the effort to attract, grow, and retain the best talent to Greater Boston. A key to making meaningful progress for women, Black, Latinx, Asian, Indigenous, and people of color is providing business leaders and companies with the tools and incentives to create culture change and achieve these critically important goals so that everyone can thrive.
We ask that you join us in this effort.
Being a Chamber member means boldly stepping into action together. We encourage our members and prospective members to join us in this effort: commit to creating more diverse boards and make your goals public, whether your organization is publicly or privately held, a non-profit, or a foundation. By joining our efforts to increase Board diversity, your company is investing in the competitiveness of the Commonwealth and the future of commerce. We will survey our Chamber members annually to assess the impact over the years and coordinate with key partners to improve the outcomes.
We are thrilled to partner with existing community organizations and members that are already doing this work and can refer companies to prospective board candidates. The Last Mile provides pro bono services to companies seeking diverse women directors. Organizations like The Partnership, Inc., ALPFA Boston, Amplify Latinx, Conexión, NAACP Boston Branch, Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, and many others are coming together to create a growing list of people of color more than ready for board roles.
We have an opportunity to usher in a renaissance for Boston that will inspire generations to come. As a member of the Chamber, we need you to lead with us so we can, together, make the greatest possible impact.
We look forward to our partnership.
James E. Rooney – CEO & President
Micho F. Spring – Chair, Board of Directors
Learn how you can advance diversity on your Board.
Download the Letter
Casey Baines – Director, Policy & Communications
[email protected] 617-557-7320
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