The Transportation First Series offers a platform to discuss the challenges faced by our region, with the input of experts and changemakers.
06/12/2025
2:45pm - 4:30pm
Hybrid | Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce
Hear from Senator Edward J. Markey, a consumer champion and leader on energy, environmental protection, and telecommunications policy.
06/16/2025
9:45am - 11:00am
Boston Marriott Long Wharf
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
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.
2020 is testing our resolve. Public health, social justice, climate action, equity in education and economic security – from jobs, to housing, to food – hang in the balance. And, in anticipation of a contentious presidential election, our democracy is polarized and vulnerable. Livelihoods and habits have been dramatically altered and there’s a weariness brought on by the unyielding news cycle.
We all need a big dose of humanity’s brighter side. Sometimes it’s as simple as hearing the right song at the right moment. Music evokes memories and captures the present. Restorative, uplifting and deeply personal yet connective, when music meets radio, it’s inherently communal.
Since March, Nielsen Scarborough data suggests that whether it be to escape or engage, listeners are tuning in to Boston’s public media music station, 88.9 WERS, for three hours a day or more, staying with the station longer than many competitors in Boston’s audio market.
An eclectic mix of alt, indie, classic rock, soul, R&B, hip-hop, showtunes, a cappella, singer-songwriters, and cutting-edge new artists, 88.9 fm is uniquely positioned as a listening oasis here in Boston, across New England, and around the globe.
“In a time of heightened uncertainty and disrupted routines, consumers are turning to radio as a trusted source of information and community connection, mirroring patterns observed during past regional and national disasters and weather events.” – Brad Kelly, Managing Director, Nielsen Audio
Patented in 1897, radio is no stranger to connecting communities during unprecedented times. In 1912, nascent radio was credited with playing a role in saving over 700 survivors of the Titanic. The medium continued to emerge as a connective force in the early 20th century as a far-flung global community faced World War I, the 1918 flu pandemic and the Great Depression.
Public media’s inaugural broadcast launched in 1910 Manhattan. Credited to Lee de Forest’s Radio Telephone Company, members of the press and public were treated to a live performance of the Metropolitan Opera. From their private apartments around the city, surprised and delighted listeners donned headphones to receive the broadcast. This transformative event brought music enthusiasts together to share their passion for the first time at a previously inconceivable scale.
To this day, public media continues to bring passionate music enthusiasts together. Broadcast from Emerson College in the heart of Boston’s Theater District and voted Princeton Review’s 2019 # 1 College Radio Station, 88.9 is the longest-running public media platform in New England. Woven deeply into the tapestry of one of the mightiest and most progressive public radio markets on the planet, 88.9 attracts and shares an affluent, educated, influential audience with heavy hitting news siblings, GBH and WBUR.
The breadth of media today is limitless with audiences’ appetites for media consumption to match. In COVID times, we are digesting more media than ever before. It’s remarkable to consider that with so much choice, radio remains the top reach medium in America. In fact, 92% of US Adults 18+ tune in to radio at least once per week. It’s easy to overlook the impact of this time-tested medium.
Additionally, for 17 years in a row, public media has been voted the most trusted institution in America.
Since March, eight in ten public radio listeners are working from home, tuning in throughout the day. For over half a decade, the migration to digital listening has been on the rise, and with the onset of work from home, the trajectory has shifted dramatically. With streaming and smart speaker usage at an all-time high, local radio is now global, available to listeners anytime, from anywhere.
In March 2020, at the onset of the pandemic, local stations quickly reimagined operating plans. With a goal of staying true to mission, WERS mobilized with a commitment to:
Expanding 88.9’s PSA Program
Serving the Greater Boston community is baked into the DNA of WERS. With that in mind, WERS General Manager Jack Casey designated inventory and creative production for national, state and local relief-oriented non-profits. To date, WERS has run over 1900 messages aimed at raising awareness for COVID-19-related funds for musicians, performers and food and housing insecure families. This election season, the station is providing critical voting information listeners need before mailing in ballots or heading to the polls.
Black History, Equity and Justice in Massachusetts:
In the wake of the deaths of George Floyd, Breanna Taylor and too many more, Americans across the country have taken to the streets, protesting police brutality and centuries of systemic racism. Mobilizing the reporting skills of our You Are Here student-led news team, WERS Secret Spot Host and Operations Manager Howard “D” Simpson launched the station’s first-ever podcast – Shadows of a Dream: The History of Racial Inequality in America. An in-depth look into the history of systemic racial injustice across Massachusetts and beyond, the series reveals the reverberations of inequity that impact Black Americans today.
Increasing Representation in Boston’s Media Market
As the master of late-night soul and R&B series The Secret Spot, D has taken the genres even further, diving deep with The Vault of Soul. As part of City Awake’s Fierce Urgency of Now Festival, D and WERS Traffic Coordinator Ashley Lindsay hosted Don’t Keep it a Secret on September 17.
In response to our listeners’ yearning for live-theater performance, WERS is producing Standing Room Only: Kitchen Kickline, an off-off-off Broadway virtual extravaganza, shining the spotlight on local Boston and regional stage companies. A weekend-long celebration, The Kitchen Kickline airs Saturday October 3rd and Sunday October 4th. The festival is accompanied by a virtual “Kitchen Table” panel featuring artistic directors from leading stage companies across Greater Boston. The session will stream on the Standing Room Only: Stage Door Group at 2pm on October 3rd, and will be moderated by Emerson College Artistic Director, Annie Levy.
Radio continues to thrive as the tested and trusted platform of choice for countless listeners in Boston and beyond. It’s the connective medium that continues to resonate with over 90% of households across the country. To learn more about the benefits of public media partnerships here in Boston, reach out to our WERS team. Discover new music, find a little inspiration and make your day a little brighter by tuning in anytime, anywhere.
Ali Dorman Fernandez is Associate Director of Underwriting & Corporate Support for 88.9fm WERS. In this role Ali is responsible for B2B end-to-end partnership journeys focused on brand impact. Ali’s worn a menagerie of hats in education and public media with highlights that include producing Reading Rainbow’s first online venture, amplifying a solutions-oriented teacher leader organization on a national scale, and shepherding corporate funding narratives for iconic PBS series FRONTLINE, Masterpiece, ANTIQUES ROADSHOW, and Arthur. In addition to expanding the reach of non-profit, performance and arts organizations across New England, Ali is happily energized at WERS mentoring Emerson student leaders, the next generation of media professionals.
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