This story has been updated.
It may be mere coincidence, but a growing number of area chambers of commerce appear to be struggling to retain or recruit CEOs to lead their pro-business organizations in the post-pandemic era.
If you happen to be shopping your executive résumé, I currently see searches underway at the Austin Chamber of Commerce, the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce (oops! Make that, once again, the Greater Chamber…) and the North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. Meanwhile, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce CEO Marina Gonzales resigned last week to partner with former Bexar County Commissioner Kevin Wolff in his business consultancy, and San Antonio Women’s Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Yvonne Katz announced last week that she is stepping down after 20 years.
I do not think the collective corner-office vacancies are a coincidence. The top job is no longer the great gig it once was. I’m not saying that chambers don’t do important work, or that they no longer matter. But it’s a different job today than it was a generation ago.
Chambers of commerce no longer occupy the power position they once held at City Hall when, for example, the Greater Chamber in the closing decades of the 20th century spoke with one voice representing the community’s major employers. The subsequent proliferation of chambers, each with its own agenda and priorities, diluted that power. The more recent rise of Big Tech also changed the equation. Tech titans don’t dress in suits and ties and carve out time to lead chamber committees. They tend to skip chamber-style galas, big business lunches and other such events.
The COVID pandemic changed everything, including pricey business gatherings. There are far fewer evening galas and luncheon programs now. It’s harder to attract paying sponsors that once made such events a go-to fundraising mechanism. As fewer workers returned to full-time office work, executives have had less time for networking as they focus on how to re-engineer productive workforces. That remains a work in progress. Employers and employees in many workplaces are at odds over the redefinition of work-life balance.
The Austin Chamber of Commerce CEO position might not normally be the subject of this column, but it’s interesting that Opportunity Austin, the powerhouse economic development entity in that city led by Gary Farmer, its founder, has parted ways with the Austin Chamber after a budget dispute. That makes the chamber CEO job far less influential and interesting. One San Antonio candidate recruited to interview for the CEO position told me he pulled out after learning Opportunity Austin would no longer be part of the organization. Another local business executive told me she turned down an invitation to interview.
The Austin chamber and economic development divorce is reminiscent of the 2017 decision by Jenna Saucedo-Herrera, at the time the newly appointed CEO of the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation (SAEDF), to move the SAEDF staff out of the Greater Chamber’s River Walk offices. She did so for two reasons: one, to establish her organization’s independence and evolution, and two, because the Greater Chamber was charging SAEDF market-rate rent for its space while only paying a token $1 a year in rent to the city, which owns the land.
Saucedo-Herrera later led the change of name from SAEDF to Greater:SATX to represent the city’s greater regional ambitions as one of the fastest-growing metro areas in the country. The new strategy at Greater:SATX called for working more collaboratively with all the economic development entities along the Interstate 35 corridor, including Austin.
Earlier this summer, the San Antonio Chamber’s interim President and CEO Dave Peterson announced the organization was changing its name back to the Greater Chamber of Commerce. It’s true that people commonly still referred to the chamber as the Greater Chamber, but I wonder if this also was an uninvited attempt to affiliate the chamber with Greater:SATX and economic development.
The move by the Greater Chamber came after efforts early in 2023 to merge with the North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce were broken off by the latter chamber. A suggestion of turmoil and misdirection at the Greater Chamber deepened this month when San Antonio attorney and lobbyist Frank Burney sent out one of his widely read weekly emails that mix City Hall buzz, insider gossip, and policy and project updates — all delivered with a dose of humor and his love of the Spurs.
“Speaking of appointments, Greater SA/Greater Again Chamber is back in the news. There’s a rumor that the first [Black] male Chair-Elect in the Chamber’s 130 year history apparently won’t be Chair of the Chamber next year because of his new partnership with a firm that works with a local firm of trial lawyers (which firm also represents Valero),” Burney wrote.
“But he has been asked to step down as Chamber Chair-Elect because he has worked for a firm for the last 18 months that has trial lawyers as its clients? That’s insulting to his contributions and leadership to our City. The Chamber is clearly not living up to its new name as being Great Again.”
Burney was referencing the reversal of plans for San Antonio real estate consultant and former SA2020 CEO Darryl Byrd, the founder of the ULTRAte real estate consultancy, to follow Katie Harvey, the CEO of KGBTexas Communications and the current Greater Chamber chair, when her term expires at year’s end. Byrd recently partnered with Christian Archer, a high-profile Democratic political consultant and now the chair of The Archer Group, which works closely with San Antonio plaintiffs attorney Mikal Watts. That association triggered pushback from some influential Greater Chamber members, Burney alleged.
Byrd was set to be the first Black male to serve as chairman, but then came a luncheon meeting where Harvey and Byrd met about his new work that takes him to St. Thomas in the Caribbean, where Watts maintains an office.
“Darryl and I went to lunch and we talked about the opportunity in front of him that was different than when we talked to him about the chairmanship in 2024,” Harvey said. “The business he has now is in the Virgin Islands, and he shared with me that he might be taking residence there in 2024, and we talked about the time commitment it takes to serve as chamber chair. … Darryl called me the next day and said, ‘I don’t think 2024 is the right year.’ We respect that.”
Harvey denied that pressure from members opposed to Byrd’s chairmanship was ever an issue. “That was not the focus of our conversation and I haven’t heard any of that,” Harvey said last week.
Byrd, who describes himself as “a private person,” just wants the matter to go away.
“I want to stay above all of this and not offer any comment,” Byrd told me Wednesday, confirming that he will not serve as the next chairman.
The optics are not good. The Greater Chamber, one former San Antonio Express-News colleague reminded me last week, was informally known in local newsrooms as “ the Greater, Whiter Chamber.” Naming a Black incoming chair only to reverse that decision is going to reverberate through the city — and not in a good way.
Two things are for sure: One, Byrd is a good and decent man with a strong business portfolio built over the last 30 years here. Two, this might make it even harder to find a new CEO.
Correction: An earlier version of this column stated that Darryl Byrd would have been the first Black person to lead the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. CPS Energy CEO Paula Gold-Williams served a half term as the chamber’s chair before resigning in July 2019 after business groups sued the City of San Antonio to block a paid sick leave ordinance. She was the first Black person to serve as chair. Also, the city owns the land the chamber’s building is on, not the building itself.
