Join us to hear from remarkable Latinas who have overcome unique hurdles to achieve success in their careers.
09/11/2024
4:00pm - 5:30pm
PwC
The Fierce Urgency of Now Festival brings Boston’s diverse young professionals together with business leaders, organizations, and their peers to build connection, advance careers and ignite positive change.
09/14/2024 -
09/17/2024
Suffolk University
Join us to hear from experts on the evolving ecosystem of data and targeting, revealing answers to pressing questions in the industry.
09/24/2024
5:30pm - 7:30pm
Wayfair
Go deeper than basic DEI training to achieve higher productivity, satisfaction, and revenue growth with our new corporate workshop.
Join our Transformational DEI Certificate! Our comprehensive learning & development offerings are designed to connect and grow strong leaders who lead both inside and out of the office.
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.
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).
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 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.
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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.
“He works the room like no one you’ve seen.”
You can’t miss him at a Chamber event – he makes introductions, makes jokes, makes his job look like a breeze. John Joy is the Director of Business Development, and when he started working at the Chamber, the Sox were entering the 82nd year of their World Series drought, the B’s and C’s were playing at a different Garden, and Wilson Philips held the top spot on the year-end Billboard top 100 (hint: it was 1990).
Since John came on two and a half decades ago, the Chamber has seen four different presidents and four different offices, and when asked about his tenure, John says that you might as well be able to say he was born here.
As the Chamber’s newest (and youngest) addition, I had the good fortune to catch up with our longest-tenured employee for a quick Q & A. Here’s what John Joy had to say.
Loaded question here – who’s your favorite president?
Well Jim Rooney – of course!
Is there any particular moment or story that you feel encapsulates your time at the Chamber?
The fun moments are, for me, especially being in Business Development – just hearing the great stories that you get when members attend events and they send you emails or just positive feedback saying, “Wow, thank you for that introduction to this company. We really it hit it off well, and now we have a meeting set up, and I think we’re going to be doing business with them.”
Hearing stories like that, it makes me feel great as to why I’m still here – helping companies, helping members build those relationships. It’s been a great opportunity for me – you really do work with a wonderful staff, a great team. And I love having the opportunity to know what’s going on in the business community, of having access to a lot these recognized local and national speakers, building strong relationships with members, connecting them with other business leaders, and providing them that access to help them grow their business. At the end of the day, when I’m able to do my job, and hear all of this great feedback of what the organization is doing, that makes me feel great. I wake up every day, and I still enjoy what I’ve been doing for more than a quarter of a century. And thanks to the many breakfast events, I do wake up every day saying, “oh wow, they do feed me as well!” – and I don’t take that for granted.
How has your role changed and grown since first started ?
I started off in the mailroom. I worked my way up from there and became an administrative assistant, and then I was a membership coordinator, and I think I’ve been in this role as Director of Business Development for ten, fifteen years now. It’s really been a great experience. I love being in Business Development, but I also have learned a lot from [the other department]- I just love working with the members and the Chamber team. It’s a small organization, so I have the opportunity to connect with other departments and learn what’s going, whether it’s policy, communications, the marketing team, I get to hear what the other teams are doing because it really is a great team environment.
What are you looking forward to in the future of the Chamber?
I’m really looking forward to seeing how our work reaching out to the innovation space shapes up, and how the Chamber can really play a role with connecting the startup community with the more-established companies that we have here. I know we can play more of a role in that space, in building that bridge. The other thing I’m looking forward to is just continuing to be bold on the policy initiatives that we play a role in, whether it’s pay equity, being vocal on the energy regulations – I think it’s really bold to take stands on these issues.
What’s something that people might not know about you?
There are a lot of things that people don’t know about me! I enjoy walking. Doing a couple of miles in the evening, my wife and I will get out as much as we can, to do our walk. And I’m a really good basketball player. I do take on my son every now and then, and of course, I let him win – even though he’s a good player as well. I love the water and boats, so any time that I can get down to the Cape to fish, it’s something that I love to do. I used to ride ATV’s – people probably can’t picture me riding an ATV!
Tell me about your family.
I have two kids; a 20-year-old daughter who just finished two years of college. She’s taking some classes to become a paralegal and ultimately, she wants to work in a law firm. And I have a 14-year-old son who will be starting high school this fall. So I’m starting to get my life back now, little by little. My wife and I celebrated our 20-year anniversary this past year. We’ve been together now for about 25 years, and I keep getting younger every day.
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