The BIMA Summer Sizzler is the must-attend networking event for marketing and media professionals.
08/11/2022
5:30pm - 8:30pm
Museum of Science
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.
This is an opportunity to meet the Chamber staff as you learn how to leverage your Chamber benefits effectively to meet your goals through our offerings.
09/29/2022
2:00pm - 3:30pm
Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce
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.
We are now recruiting for our 2022 fall DEI cohort! We hope you’ll join us in our mission to increase DEI fluency and change in the Boston business community – starting with you.
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 Economic Inclusion Committee provides strategic support around research, policies, and programs that are focused on building equal opportunity.
We are developing an ecosystem of corporations and partners with the influence and buying power to transform economic inclusion for minority business enterprises (MBEs).
City Awake empowers young professionals in a variety of ways that encourages these rising leaders to stay invested in the region’s future success.
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 more than 25 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.
Through MITX (the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange), we’re building valuable connections between the people and ideas behind technology and its impact on the future of customer experiences, all to create a community that’s finding tomorrow’s solutions together.
We support small business through public policy initiatives, events designed to connect small businesses in Greater Boston to their peers and established business leaders, professional development offerings, and free small business advising.
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.
On the second day of the Fierce Urgency of Now festival, a world-class panel convened to discuss how businesses impact our region, how people can advocate for change no matter the industry they work in, and what Boston’s tomorrow will look like.
As the panel kicked off, a quote from Massachusetts State Representative, Ayanna Pressley, was shared, “the people closest to the pain should be the closest to the power.”
The moderator and panelists detailed as follows:
In this event, questions were posed for the panelists to discuss. Below we recap the key takeaways.
The Boston Chamber of Commerce’s President and CEO, Jim Rooney, replied:
Even before COVID, the population of immigrants was increasing in Boston. We are in a moment now where 1/3 of the workforce in the region, and 22% of Bostonians, are immigrants. Immigrants hold $36B in spending power, and contribute $10B to federal taxes and $5B to state taxes. The business case is clear. What we need is advocacy at the federal level. We need to:
Weber Shandwick’s Micho Spring, who came to this country from Cuba at age 10, replied:
After managing the communications of the racial riots in the 70s at City Hall, for American Airlines during 9/11 and the Boston Athletic Association through the Boston Marathon bombing, Micho says the important thing to do is “meet the moment and bracket it – this is the end, and we are now going to move forward.” COVID-19 defies bracketing in that there is no marker to take it back to what we knew.
Nothing has as ever impacted every human being on the planet at the same time – the dynamics of work/family, employer/employee, and business/society. Here’s what we’ve learned about communication from this:
Windwalker Group’s Herbie Duverne shared:
We already see a prime example of how we are coming back from this history as a city by looking at the diversity in the candidates for the Boston mayoral election. People are focusing on making change. It is not just enough to invite a marginalized community to a space, but they have to be involved in the planning efforts. We need to examine their needs so that we can address them. Urban planners should focus on prioritizing green space so that everyone is able to go to parks.
The Barr Foundations’ Jim Canales replied:
Boston ranks second in the United States as having the largest number of residents within a ten-minute walk of a public park. We are doing well, but one thing we have not done is to go to the neighborhood level and invite them to tell us what they want from open space, streets, and communities. We did experiments during COVID with turning converted parking to restaurant space in order to serve more people outdoors. This created spaces for dining and helped restaurants. We need to continue to drive a narrative that is more inclusive and inviting.
Micho Spring replied:
The most important things are to define your values and what is important to you while looking for opportunities that reflect and channel your values through an organization’s leadership. Think about where you will grow as a person. For many, the ability to grow personally and professionally means more than pay itself. As the lines between work and personal lives blur, find an environment where you will learn from the right people, that will make you proud each day, and that allows for progressive change. The pandemic has also shifted power to employees, so be bold in asking for what you want.
A couple of our panelists weighed in on this final question:
Micho Spring said: “they not only demand business have a plan, a conscience and that it delivers. They believe in the role business can play in societal change, they don’t take no for an answer and expect a diverse workplace.”
Jim Canales added: “the level of energy, ambition and the push for bold and aspirational solutions. They hold managers accountable, are flexible and able to pivot and have a high level of engagement to help Boston fulfill promise.”
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