Nancy Hoehn, Alpharetta Chamber of Commerce CEO & President on Georgia Podcast

On-Air Guest BIO:
Nancy is currently leading the Alpharetta Chamber of Commerce as their first CEO/President. It is an honor to have the opportunity to work for an organization that is serving the business community in the 6th fastest growing city in the United States! Nancy looks forward to sharing her expertise in the industry and skills to take the Alpharetta Chamber to the next level of growth.
Beginning her professional career in the accounting industry both public and private, she developed a strong sense of analyzing business trends. After earning her Master’s Degree, she advanced to business administration where she gained experience in contract negotiation, HR management and large-scale event planning (conferences, training, etc.) After serving for nearly a decade in several elected district leadership positions with Toastmasters International including the CEO Position of District 84 Director, her professional focus expanded to public relations, community relations and non-profits.

During the past several years, Nancy has been involved with several Chambers in Florida to lead, grow membership, improve retention and educate the community on the value of Chamber membership. Her successes with building a stronger community of businesses and creating more value for the members, gave her the skills and experience to take a young chamber to the next level of growth.

For close to a decade, serving in District Leadership for Toastmasters International; the most current being the Executive Director/CEO position of District Director, Nancy led an all-volunteer leadership team of more than 70 individuals to provide support and guidance to the more than 4000 members in the 200+ clubs in Central and Northern Florida. This team exceeded all goals, won several awards and insured the members were well-served. This experience gave Nancy the leadership and staff management skills to be a strong community leader!

Topics to Discuss:
About Our Chamber
Our Role in the Community
How We Serve Our Members

There is a battle happening in your community. Communities, towns, & cities need to be economically vibrant to provide services and environmental aesthetics and there is competition from other communities for businesses to invest in development to provide the ever-increasing revenue source required.

Your community Chamber of Commerce is on the frontline promoting your community to be more advantageous to business and development than the next community.

Atlanta is the fastest growing metro area in the U.S. and Alpharetta is the fastest growing city in the Metro Atlanta area.

Our guest on the Georgia Podcast is Nancy Hoehn, the CEO & President of Alpharetta Chamber of Commerce is here to share what the Alpharetta Chamber of Commerce is doing that is making it one of the fastest growing cities in America.

Personal

Before becoming the CEO / President of Alpharetta’s Chamber, Nancy had been involved with several Chambers in Orlando, Florida area.

She was also Executive Director/CEO position of a Toastmaster District Director and led a team of 70 providing support and guidance to the 200+ clubs and over 4,000 members in the in Central and Northern Florida.

Chamber:
Most of us know something about our community Chamber of Commerce.
But most of us do not think too much about why it is important to our business and quality of life.
A little history about Chambers of Commerce:
The first chamber of commerce was founded in 1599 in Marseille, France and the 1st in the U.S. was in NY 1768.

A chamber of commerce, also referred to as a board of trade, is a business network, whose goal it is to advance and promote the economic environment for business and general welfare of the community they serve. They are usually independent and sometimes quasi-government organizations that have influence on legislators by lobbying to have laws passed favorable to businesses.

A brief introduction to Alpharetta:
Money Magazine selected Alpharetta as the #1 City in GA
Southern Living magazine listing Alpharetta among the top 15 Friendliest Towns in the South.
Alpharetta has become the “Technology City of the South”, home to more than 700+ technology-based corporations enjoying one of the most robust and redundant fiber infrastructure networks in the southeast, along with a series of redundant electric/power networks. Alpharetta has more than 20 million square feet of office space,

How does the Alpharetta Chamber of Commerce help the City of Alpharetta to be successful?

The Chamber connects the community by supporting businesses and entrepreneurs that, working together, will continue to strengthen this sustainable network.

Alpharetta Chamber of Commerce is in its 6th year and has grown to over 400 members.

Companies join the Chamber voluntarily; they are not obligated to become chamber members.

The Chamber works hard promoting the benefits of membership.

What are the benefits for joining a Chamber of Commerce?

The Chamber is an advocate for responsive government and quality education, while preserving Alpharetta’s unique community characteristics.

The Chamber Advances and promotes the economic environment for business, and to advocate responsive government and quality education, while preserving Alpharetta’s unique community characteristics.

In a very real sense Chambers of Commerce stands at the junction for government, business and residence interests.

The Chamber serves the interests of business and the community. However, it means that they must strive to balance the best interests for both business and residences when what is good for one may be detrimental to the other.

How does the Chamber do that?

The Chamber leads, grows membership, improves retention and educates the community on the value of Chamber membership

Can you give us an example how the Chamber aligns the interest of business and the community?

Alpharetta has an Economic Development Director. The goals are similar to the goals of the Chamber.

How does the Chamber coordinate with the Economic Development Director?

“The City brings them in – the Chamber inspires”

Chambers are businesses, competing against other chambers for investments

What is the value proposition?

What are its challenges?

What specifically needs to be done to make it grow?

At the Alpharetta Chamber of Commerce, the voice for business and serving our business community is top-priority.

Chamber would like to have large corporations become more involved in the Chamber.

It would bring a consensus of what business thinks would be good for business and become the voice for the community.

A Council of large corporations would have access to the Mayor

What are the challenges facing the growth of the Chamber?

What is the Chambers growth focus – its target markets?

The Chamber is ready to grow to the next level and I look forward to working with the Board of Directors, the City and County Officials and the business community to make Alpharetta a much-desired destination and the Chamber a much-valued resource in the community.

What would the chamber do if it had a larger budget?

Increase staff to accomplish more

Web Site / Social Media Links:
www.alpharettachamber.com

https://www.linkedin.com/company/alpharetta-chamber-of-commerce/


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