2022 Annual Celebration Recap
On October 25, 2022, over 800 people gathered at the Nashville Renaissance Hotel to celebrate 175 years of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce and its role in creating economic prosperity by facilitating community leadership. If you missed our 2022 Annual Celebration or want to relive the event, check out our highlights below.
Spirit of the Region Award
Darrell Freeman Sr. was honored posthumously as this year’s recipient of the Spirit of the Region Award. Along with his entrepreneurial business ventures and philanthropic work, he served as the second African American chairman of the Chamber and is the only person to have served twice as chairman in recent history. During his terms on the Chamber board, Freeman spearheaded organizational leadership and governance changes, renewed the focus on core initiatives, developed an entrepreneurial task force, relentlessly pursued excellence in public education, and maintained a focus on inclusion in both board and committee leadership. Freeman's four children accepted the award on his behalf.
Watch our tribute to this year's Spirit of the Region Award recipient Darrell S. Freeman Sr.
Pictured left to right: Bob Higgins, Mayor John Cooper, Darrell Freeman Jr., Kenya Freeman, Ebony Freeman, Nathan Freeman, Mike Johnson, Ralph Schulz
We Are Nashville Program
The annual event also included an immersive We Are Nashville experience to foster deeper understanding of who we are, inspire conversations that help us get to know one another, and take simple but meaningful actions to embrace and preserve the special character of our city and region to ensure the prosperity we’ve seen in Nashville is shared by everyone. Told through the eyes of award-winning photojournalist Philip Holsinger and marketing and advertising executive Kerry Graham, We Are Nashville is a family portrait of the people who live in Nashville, designed to remind us of our common values and the needs of those around us.
Learn more about We Are Nashville and their mission, discover more stories, and dive deeper on the characters introduced at the event, visit their website.
Chamber Highlights
Over the past year, the Chamber welcomed 306 new members and 24 new Partnership 2030 investors. Between July 2021 and June 2022, nearly 40 businesses relocated to or expanded in Middle Tennessee, creating more than 16,500 new jobs and $3 billion in capital investment.
Partnership 2030 completed a successful first year of its five-year regional economic development plan. Focusing on three interconnected strategic drivers: job growth, education, and talent development, and quality of place and livability. The strategy also identifies two strategic foundations that support each driver and are critical to the success of this plan: regional collaboration and deep prosperity.
Annual Report
You can read more about Nashville’s success, the Spirit of the Region Award honoree, the Chamber’s members and investors, and more about the Chamber’s 175 years of history in this year’s interactive annual report at nashvillechamber.report.
Membership
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