Jeff Webster, president and CEO of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, was succinct when offering the chamber’s value proposition to local businesses.
“You can’t do what we’re going to do for you,” he said.
Webster, who served as District 10’s city councilman in the late 1990s before working in the private sector as a business development executive for several large engineering firms, was named to the chamber’s top spot in November.
Just two weeks prior, the North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce named its new CEO and president, Brett Finley, the former director of government affairs for the San Antonio Board of Realtors. Both men spoke with the San Antonio Report this week to talk about the priorities of their respective chambers, what they’re hearing from local businesses and why they believe chambers of commerce remain relevant in this turbulent, post-pandemic era.
Both chambers had been without permanent CEOs since the Greater Chamber’s Richard Perez and the North Chamber’s Cristina Aldrete stepped down in late 2022. The Hispanic Chamber of Commerce is still searching to replace Marina Gonzales, who left in July 2023.
The Greater Chamber — it restored “Greater” to its name last June after a 2022 leadership restructuring — and the North Chamber discussed merging around that time after some in the business community fretted that there were too many chambers of commerce in San Antonio. Ultimately, the North SA Chamber chose to remain independent.
Webster has long been a member of both chambers, remaining civically engaged since he was term-limited out of office in 1999.
Last year he served as the Greater Chamber’s public policy chair — “about the third time I’ve done that role for the Greater Chamber; I’ve done it for the North Chamber, I’ve done water, I’ve done infrastructure, I’ve chaired all these things over the years,” he said. On last year’s annual SA to DC lobbying trip, he said, “I realized how much I love this, and what we do.”
He described seeking the job as akin to a political campaign: He went on a listening tour.
“What I heard from the business community and investors was that we really need the Greater Chamber to be the voice, to be out there in front.” The days when a small handful of white male business titans set the agenda for San Antonio is over, he said, and the community and power structure that replaced them is more diverse and diffuse. The Greater Chamber, he said, needs to be able to “pull the fibers back together … and advocate, from small to large.”
Business owners and leaders often don’t have the time, the money or the connections to advocate for themselves, he said, and that’s the value of a chamber membership. The Greater SA Chamber has roughly 1,750 members.
Webster said businesses don’t have to take his word for it; they’ll see the chamber in action: “People are going to know we’re back in the game.”
Pre-pandemic, he said, local chambers had begun to lose their focus on advocacy in favor of “events and trips,” he said. COVID closures blew that model up. Today, he said, “we know our role. … We’re going to be out there advocating, to make sure the city or the county is not in your way to do business. That state and federal are not in your way to do business.”
Webster, 63, said he believes he was chosen to lead the organization because he’s a well-known quantity in San Antonio. “I have not missed a major thing that has happened in this city in the past 25 years,” he said. “The biggest gift I have is the ability to bring people together, to mediate, to unify and to advocate.”
If Webster offers familiarity and experience, Finley, 35, brings a Millennial’s perspective and energy to his role, even as he leads an organization that is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
Finley echoed Webster’s focus on advocacy as a core chamber function. “Our steadfast commitment is to advocate for our member businesses and the dedicated men and women they employ,” he said.
He acknowledged the need for the chambers to work together to increase their effectiveness, but he also made the case for the North Chamber as an organization with value in its own right. Finley said he heard loud and clear from members and the board “that we’re independent and we want to continue that. That is part of our legacy.”
He described his group, which has about 900 members, as a more nimble operation, “not having to steer a massive ship. We can make decisions and be the voice of business and industry … in a little swifter fashion than maybe other groups can.”
Finley also noted that the chamber’s members hail from “all four corners of the county,” rather than just the North Side, and confirmed that the organization “has aspirations” for a rebrand and name change.
In addition to advocacy, Finley said the North Chamber wants to be an “information hub” for members who are busy running their businesses and may not be able to keep up with every twist and turn at City Hall and the state Legislature.
Both Finley and Webster named the upcoming City Charter review process as an advocacy priority, especially compensation and tenure for elected officials and the city manager. The review also will look at expanding the number of council districts and modernizing certain language in the charter.
Raising council pay will help widen the pool of San Antonians who could consider the job, Webster said. “We’re going to be right in the middle of advocating” for council and city manager pay raises and adjusting term limits.
“We think City Manager Erik Walsh is doing just a phenomenal job,” said Finley, “and we don’t think it’s in the city’s best interest” to limit the city manager’s tenure to eight years, as was codified by the 2018 charter amendment that also limits the position’s pay.
Advanced Rapid Transit appears to be another priority for both chambers, “and making sure it gets the appropriate funding,” said Finley. VIA Metropolitan Transit plans to break ground this year on the north-south Green Line, which will connect the San Antonio International Airport to downtown and points south.
In addition to securing funding, Finley said the project still requires education to increase community buy-in. The North Chamber, he said, can help sell the project to skeptical residents. “Housing, transit, economic development, workforce development — it’s all interconnected,” he said.
