Economic Development as a Team Sport with Adrienne Cole

Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Adrienne Cole. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.

Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.

Introduction

Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.

Voiceover Talent 0:14
And now your host he recently formed a Chamber Chat Champions Facebook group to make the podcast a more interactive experience. Here’s my dad Brandon Burton.

Brandon Burton 0:24
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.

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Guest Introduction

Our guest for this episode is Adrienne Cole

Adrienne Cole is the president and CEO of the Raleigh Chamber and leads the Triangle’s largest business membership organization representing two-thirds of the private sector employment in Wake County. With more than 25 years of experience, Adrienne previously served as the Chamber’s senior vice president of Economic Development and executive director of Wake County Economic Development.

Adrienne and her team support the interests of the local business community while building a thriving regional economy, enhancing the community’s quality of life, and strengthening member businesses. Adrienne’s core focus areas are the key drivers of this community and include economic development, diversity, equity and inclusivity, government affairs, transportation, workforce development, talent, entrepreneurship, leadership development, and small business. 

Since 2014, Adrienne and Wake County Economic Development (a program of the Raleigh Chamber) announced more than 54 corporate relocations and expansions totaling over $4.9 billion in capital investments and creating more than 22,523 jobs. These figures include announcements from global companies such as Infosys, Microsoft, Pendo, Bandwidth, Apple, FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies, Google, and Amgen.

Adrienne serves on numerous boards including the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives. Adrienne is a graduate of Meredith College and received a master’s degree in public administration from Appalachian State University.

Adrienne has been the recipient of the Triangle Business Journal’s Women in Business Award and CEO of the Year award. She has also been recognized by Business NC as a Top 100 Influencer in North Carolina and in their Power 100 list. Adrienne and her husband live in Raleigh and have three children.

Adrienne, I am excited to have you with me today on Chamber Chat Podcast, I’d love for you to just take a moment to say hello to all the chamber champions listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can get to know you better.

Something Interesting About Adrienne

Adrienne Cole 3:42
Oh my goodness, thank you so much for having me today. I’m really honored to to be with you and to share some of what we’re working on in Raleigh and with the Raleigh Chamber. But yeah, a hearty hello to my chamber colleagues across the country. I get so many good ideas from them and bounce ideas off of them and learn and just have so much respect for what they’re doing in their communities. You know, when I first moved into this profession Yeah, it was described to me as a as an avocation, not necessarily a vocation. And you know, chamber leaders tend to be really passionate, mission driven people who care so much about their communities and so yeah, the opportunity to say hello to all of them today and wish them well and hope that everything’s going well in their communities is a real treat. So thank you.

Brandon Burton 4:38
It is a great community and a great network when you get into chamber world so we all

Adrienne Cole 4:43
want to learn from each other for sure such Inspirational Leaders Yeah,

Brandon Burton 4:48
that’s right. Well share with us a little bit more about the the rally chamber so know your chamber and from your bio, you guys obviously handle economic development and things But let us know you know more about your chamber, maybe the size, budget staff, that sort of thing, just to kind of give perspective as we get into our topic for today.

About the Raleigh Chamber

Adrienne Cole 5:10
Thank you. Yes. So the Raleigh chamber is, I guess you would categorize us as a larger chamber. So about 1800 members give or take, you know, a few 42 full time staff, and an annual budget of about $9 million. So certainly not the largest out there, but not the smallest either. We, while our name is the Raleigh chamber when we go by the Raleigh chamber, our legal name is the greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce. We are many of our programs are regional at so expand outside of the city of Raleigh proper, but we work super collaboratively with other chambers in our region. So the Wake County has filled municipalities rally being the largest, most of those municipalities have their own chambers of commerce. And so we work closely with our colleagues across not only Wake County, but into Durham County, work closely with the Durham chamber, Chapel Hill chamber, our friends to the east as well in economic development, and then we’re going to talk more about that, but also in other areas of our business and other business lines. So So yeah, that’s it in a nutshell, we we like to think that we are an entrepreneurial bunch and that while there are things that we’ve been doing for a long time, that we also aren’t afraid to launch new initiatives. One of the one of the newer initiatives being the triangle diversity, equity and inclusivity. Alliance, which we launched in March of 2019.

Brandon Burton 6:47
Very good that definitely gives some perspective to where you’re you’re coming from, which I think is going to be an important for our discussion today, as we focus our interaction around the idea of economic development as a team sport. And I think that is a great perspective to take as we as we look at economic development, especially as you guys are positioned as in kind of that regional partnerships that you’d mentioned there. That we will get into this discussion as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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Topic-Economic Development as a Team Sport

Alright, Adrienne , we are back. As I mentioned, we’ll we’ll be talking about economic development as a team sport. So why don’t you let me hand the mic over to you and tell us a little bit more about how you partner with the other economic entities throughout your region. Some of the cities, counties, other chambers, what is what does that look like and how you guys have approached economic development in your region?

Adrienne Cole 8:58
Yeah, thanks, Brandon. So you know, we really, really believe that we’re stronger together. And we’re not Pollyanna about that. We know that there are complexities to that and and there’s different dynamics in each community. But we really do believe that if we move forward together and put a unified front together for as a region, that we’re going to be stronger as it relates to economic development. And so just as an example, it is not unusual for a site selection consultant or a company to reach out and say, We’re considering Raleigh for our relocation, but they don’t mean the municipal boundaries of Raleigh. They’re there meaning the broader sense of Raleigh and very often they mean the Research Triangle region. And so it is not unusual for us to then team up with our partners in Durham. So the Durham chamber leads economic development for Durham so Durham economic development as a part of the Durham chamber and we will do a joint submissions We may have received requests for proposals or requests from it for information from a client, and we will team up do a joint submission, work that project together, recognizing that the client is going to make the decision that works best for them. Do they want to partner more closely with Duke University? Or do they want to partner closely with North Carolina State University that may drive their decision on whether they locate in downtown Durham or downtown Raleigh as an example? Do they feel a greater affiliation for the field in in one of those communities over the other and, and we’re fine with that. And so when a project lands in another community that that is a neighboring community to wait County, we celebrate that win as a region. We have lots of structures that support that collaboration. So not only are we intentional about it from a leadership standpoint, but we also facilitate that through a regular cadence of meetings. So once a month, we have a meeting that we call a regional roundtable and it is myself, our executive director of White County Economic Development, the Durham chamber President Jeff Durham, his head of Durham economic development. Aaron Nelson from the Chapel Hill chamber joins us and his government affairs person Katie lwvus joins because the Chapel Hill chamber doesn’t do economic development, but he’s still an important partner in the regional discussion. We also include the president and CEO of the Research Triangle Park Foundation, that’s the group that manages the park, which the park straddles wake and Durham counties. And we include the executive director of the Research Triangle Regional Partnership, which is a 10 County effort focused on marketing the region externally for economic development. So he does a lot of foreign direct investment work. He’s marketing the region across the country, and really across the globe. We meet monthly in this regional roundtable to share what we’re working on. What projects may have reached out to us what challenges we may be facing, are there needs around transportation and transit, is there a public policy issue that we need to tackle, and that regular cadence of meetings, builds the relationship over time, and helps us operate from a place of trust. And I think that, you know, it sounds super simple. But we do that in other areas of our business, too. And I think it’s a really important role that chambers of all sizes, can play a part in and can lead regardless of whether they do economic development. And no, we’re talking specifically about economic development as a team sport. And it is we are so much stronger as a team than we are as individual organizations or at war with our neighbors. But it but it translates across and beyond economic development. And I hope we have a chance to talk a little bit about that, too. I will also share that the Research Triangle regional partnership is a 10 County effort to market the region. We have structures that allow us and facilitate the collaboration so that we’re not competing with one another for funding. So we support our economic development work financially, through a program called edge. And it’s a five year funding program. We’re an edge six now. So this is the sixth iteration of the five year campaign. Companies Make five year pledges to support our economic development work 20% of the private sector dollars, we raise those to support the Research Triangle regional partnership. So we are their largest funder, and as a result, they’re not out fundraising also creating a competitive landscape for us. Yeah. So that really, so we have structures in place that facilitate that collaboration. And then we have, so that sort of creates that foundation, and then we have intentional leadership, that’s guiding those conversations and making it a priority.

Brandon Burton 13:59
So wow, you’ve covered a lot of good stuff already. Well, I’ve been taking notes here says I circle back around, you had mentioned how you celebrate any success in the region, which I think is huge, instead of being a having that competitive nature when it comes to economic development, realizing that, you know, if a if a big major corporation moves to Durham, that’s still gonna support your community because there’s all those other businesses support that are going to move and, and the businesses that are already there are going to get a boost because there’s helping to support that. So it’s also interconnected. But I think the example you gave of an errand at Chapel Hill chamber being a part of your roundtable, even though Chapel Hill chamber doesn’t specifically handle economic development, he still has a seat at the table. So he’s still involved. He’s still being a team player with economic development in the region, which I think is so important. No matter what the size of your chamber is, or if you officially have an economic development responsibility, there still is a role for every chamber to play. Absolutely,

Adrienne Cole 15:13
yeah, he’s a very important partner. And, you know, he may not be doing project handling specifically. But he’s very engaged in conversations that are creating the environment where companies can be successful if they’re here, or want to move into, right. And so we have a regional public policy agenda that we work on with 18 chambers in our region, to align public policy initiatives, some of which are focused around economic development. And you know, so that’s creating that, that the product, the community, the the quality of place, that companies want to then invest in, and so it’s supporting our economic development work. Aaron is an incredibly important partner in our regional transportation Alliance. So RTA is a program of the rally chamber, it’s it’s it’s so powered out of our organization. But it is a standalone restricted fund effort focused on mobility in the region. It’s a business led organization focused on mobility, transportation, and transit is incredibly important economic development. Aaron in the chat, little chamber is deeply involved in RTA. And so you know, it’s all interconnected. And that speaks to the team element of it too, you know, we really, we really work in silos at our detriment, and at our peril. And if you can come together as a community around some of these things, and work together on them, and provide knowledge, the united front to the client that might be looking to move a major life science project in or Information Technology Project 10, or an advanced manufacturing project, and but then you’re also working together to create and maintain the quality of place that you want to maintain, then then your entire region is better for it.

Brandon Burton 17:07
Absolutely. And so that that segues well into, I wanted to come back to the the regional leadership roundtable. Kind of, because like you said, it is so much more than just economic development, you guys are able to cover a lot of different faculties that kind of they’re interconnected in making a region attractive for these for these businesses to come and be a part of. What was the the origins for this roundtable? Who leads it? Who creates the agenda? Yeah, just kind of. So I’m asking these questions, just so somebody’s listening, if they wanted to create something similar in their area, how does that look like and how does it function?

Adrienne Cole 17:54
Yeah, so I cannot take credit for the the creation of the cadence of meetings because the regional roundtables just one of the regular meetings we have, we could talk about the others. But, you know, the person who I really point to and give credit to creating this, these, the muscle memory around collaboration, and the fabric that really creates this tapestry of collaboration was Harvey Schmidt. You know, Harvey was the longtime president and CEO of the Raleigh chamber here for 21 years, I worked with him for years on our economic development team. tremendous mentor to me, I feel like I carry a little Harvey around the my shoulder everywhere I go whispering in my ear, which is not a bad thing. Um, and, you know, Harvey was really a front runner in terms of regionalism and regional thinking, and then put structures in place to facilitate that. So he and the then leader of the Research Triangle Park, and the then leader of the Durham chamber, and others came together to say we have to work together as a region. They even went so far as to initiate it was a program that had had its own brand and its own mark and all that, but it was really to get people thinking around regionalism, and it was called a family of communities. And the thinking behind it is that every community can have its own personality not dissimilar to the members of a family. But then as a family would you have shared values and shared things that you were working on and share things that you come together around and that we as a region could operate as a family of communities, and so that allows Durham to still have Durham’s personality and and what makes Durham unique, and the town of Cary has its own personality and what makes Cary unique, and Raleigh has would have been what makes Raleigh unique and Chapel Hill what makes Chapel Hill unique and you’re not, you’re not diluting that by coming together and working together, and so that was done in the 90s, that effort around a family of communities, and from that came the sort of regular cadence of meetings that that we, that we protect, and that we maintain and that people are committed to. So I mentioned the regional roundtable, we also do a, a quarterly effort with with regional chambers coming together to share what they’re working on. We do. Every other month, we bring the economic developers from the 12 municipalities that we support with Wade County Economic Development, we bring those economic developers together every other week, every other month, rather, to share what they’re working on. And in those economic development organizations, some of them are in chambers in those communities. So for instance, the the town of Karis, economic developers with the carry chamber, others are town employees. So you know, at the apex economic developers, a town employee, we don’t care, we’re bringing them all together to collaborate to understand how we can support them through way County Economic Development, and so that they’re getting to know each other on a regular basis. About every other month, the economic developers in the 10 county region that Research Triangle regional partnership represents come together to share and we’re pretty open. So we run a program called work in the triangle, which is a Talent Recruitment and Retention effort to support economic development. If an economic developer in one of our 10 County area needs information or to utilize that as a tool for a recruitment effort that they are doing, they are welcome to it. So we’re not we’re not holding anything and saying that’s ours, we’re saying use it and own it and make it yours. And I hope it helps you with what they’re working on. Right. And so I think that that just sort of openness, but the openness is born out of this relationship building that happens over time, where you’re working with people who you know, and trust in like, and and then can move forward. I’ll share one more one more meeting that our chamber convenes that any chamber could do in their community, regardless of whether they do you know what their specific service lines are. And so we call it the leadership roundtable. Again, this was a Harvey Harvey creation, that I just tend to use the leadership roundtable. So the first Friday of every month at 8am, we host a meeting. That includes our city manager, our mayor, our county commission chair, our county manager, our school, board, Chair, school superintendent, head of the airport, head of our CVB, head of our downtown organization, head of the Research Triangle regional partnership, that marketing effort head of the park RTP.

The head of our community college, so we Tech Community College is huge. We have 75,000 students in it. We have leadership from our unit from NC State University, you get the point, and my executive leadership at the Chamber attend. So we have business leaders in the room. And they come together the first Friday of every month, we have a three minute timer that we flipped over for in person, if we’re on Zoom, it’s a timer on the Zoom call. Everybody does a three minute update. There is no agenda, it’s to share the magic really happens before and after the meeting. It’s a safe zone. So everybody has an agreement that what is shared in this room stays in this room unless explicitly discussed that there’s a strategic reason to take to carry it outside of the room. I kind of it’s organized by by our my office. So my executive assistant sends out the invitations. If someone stopped showing up, though they get a call from me. Where are you? We miss you. Your voice is important. We can’t have the same discussion without you. And then the next meeting, they’re there. These meetings have been happening for decades. And it creates this fabric of collaboration, that muscle memory, you’ve got people who are working together and coming together. And so when there’s a problem, let’s say there’s a discrepancy in the amount of funding the county commission wants to get the school system. Those leaders have developed a relationship and can navigate that more smoothly than they could if they didn’t know each other. The chamber is the is the convener there. We’re the conductor. And that convener conductor role is so powerful in communities, regardless of the service lines that that particular chamber does, whether it’s economic development or public policy or you know, whatever it is.

Brandon Burton 24:59
Yeah, And I think the big thing that you’re addressing there is the trust, being able to, to come together to convene. It’s a great example of how you guys are operating as a convener. But to cultivate a place of trust, where people can can share the projects they have on their mind, thanks for going on struggles. And I see this operating a lot like a people are familiar with the term of mastermind, you bring a group of people together and together, you know, your combined knowledge and experience, you know, is exponentially greater than any one to individual, or any one organization is awesome. And people

Adrienne Cole 25:46
also develop an appreciation for what the other organization is facing and working on. And there’s real power in that too. Because anything, you know, anything’s possible if you don’t know what you’re talking about. And so it gives people an opportunity to have a better understanding of what their partner organizations and and, you know, and to see those other organizations as their partner organizations. You know, in some communities, they don’t even see each other as partner organizations. And they really, that’s a missed opportunity. And you asked earlier, you know, how are the agenda set? You know, so this leadership Roundtable, I’m mentioning doesn’t really have an agenda, the agenda is to share what you’re working on. For our regional Round Table meetings that we started the conversation with. It’s a crowdsource agenda. You know, we send a note out that says, hey, looking forward to seeing everybody on this day, send us your agenda items, we’ll make sure that they’re added to the list. You know, and so that way, we’re covering what everyone and the agenda pivots depending if we’ve got a huge project that we’re pursuing together, that might be the entire agenda, that economic development project

Brandon Burton 26:57
is your office and collecting all those topics? yardage, okay.

Adrienne Cole 27:02
Yeah, we are. And yeah, we were the we’re organizing it and sending out the Zoom link or, you know, sending out the meeting reminder, but like those regional roundtable meetings aren’t, we don’t host them at our chamber, we’re hosting them at the Research Triangle Park office, because it’s more central. Yeah. So we don’t really we’re trying to facilitate it, but we don’t feel the need that we have to own it. Sure, that makes make sense.

Brandon Burton 27:28
Makes a lot of sense. I love the the strategy that comes together by by bringing together all these different entities, different communities, being able to see the strengths that you each have being able to support one another. And I think there’s so much synergy that comes from doing this, and to tearing down those silos and those barriers between communities and really sharing the success, you know, across community lines, across boundaries that are more or less, you know, fictional boundaries that are there, but really building up your the greater community at large, I think you guys are setting a great example. And obviously have great organizations that are, are a part of it with you and helping to see this vision through.

Adrienne Cole 28:18
So true.

Brandon Burton 28:20
I wanted to ask you, if you would, if you have any, any tips or action items for listeners that they might be able to take from our discussion and apply in their, you know, their own chamber to try to bring them up to the next level and, and work towards maybe some of these synergies?

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Adrienne Cole 28:40
Thank you for that question. Such a great question. Um, so I think so what one’s gonna be sort of specific to economic development, and then just more broad, so I would just encourage anyone who is doing economic development to remember that companies don’t care about municipal or county boundaries, they don’t care. They really are trying to tap your region, they’re trying to tap your workforce in the region, they want to see that you’ve got a plan not only for today, but for 1520 years down the down the road, and they really like to see the collaboration. So you will better position your community if you are collaborating with your community colleges, with your colleges and universities with your partner organizations, other chambers, other economic development organizations, so being open to that, and trying to move in that direction, and socialize that idea also with the elected officials in in their communities, because sometimes elected officials can be very, very wish it was that it’s their job, their job is to represent that unit of local government. But if they can encourage that collaborative teamwork, it will help their economic development strategy in the long run. So that that’s one from just from a tactical standpoint. The other, which is another Harvey ism, I’ve got to give credit where credit is due, is, you know, from a, from a development of your, your own opportunity as a chamber executive, you know, he’s to say, and I say it all the time, you can fake sincerity but you can’t fake showing up. So you have to be present, you’ve got to show up, even if you don’t know exactly what your role is, you know, being being open from a place of wanting to help to, you know, not pushing in and like this forceful kind of way. But in a, you know, how can I help as an as a professional? How can my organization help? What can we do to support this initiative that you were doing, I think, is such a great opportunity to broaden your own horizons, it creates opportunity, and then being open to that opportunity, I think is another thing that’s really important for folks to remember. I think, you know, approaching it with humility is always important. But But that, that sort of recognizing that you’ve got to show up, you’ve got to be present, is really important. That’s

Brandon Burton 31:13
right. Those are both great tips. I love that quote, you can’t fake that you can fake sincerity, but you can’t fake showing up, you got to show up.

Adrienne Cole 31:22
You got to show up. Thank you for that one, too.

Brandon Burton 31:27
So as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward? I

Future of Chambers

Adrienne Cole 31:33
think that you’re so important. And you know, my observation of chambers is that, you know, they adapt to what their community needs, often and every community is different. And so every chamber is different. You know, there’s that adage of you seen one chamber, you see one chamber. That being said, I think that chambers play such an important role. We’ve already touched on some of the serving is that convener, that conductor, that trusted partner, but also think that chambers have the ability to find the middle ground in a way that other other organizations might not be able to, you know, the ability to bring the private sector, to the table with academia with the nonprofit sector with elected officials, to find common ground to move communities forward to move initiatives forward, I think chambers are uniquely positioned to do and, and it’s it’s such, it’s always been an important role. I mean, the rally chamber is 132 years old. So and I was reading recently, an annual, it was a it was a business plan for the coming year. And they were talking about a lot of the same things that we still talk about transportation and education and economic development and business support. And I was like, wow, I could have just picked this up and plugged it back down again. But it speaks to how vitally important chambers are. And I think in this incredibly contentious world that we find ourselves in chambers have just an immensely important role to play.

Brandon Burton 33:11
They do at that I was going to touch on that is that, you know, social media and the news outlets are making the job a little easier, in a way for chambers to have that need in the community to find that middle ground to bring people together, convene them in a way on a common purpose, and moving your community forward. And I think that’s it takes special people I believe, to work at a chamber to be able to, to have that vision to bring people together from different backgrounds and do that successfully. So big thank you to all the all the chamber professionals out there that are doing that successfully.

Adrienne Cole 33:51
So for sure, you know, and I remind my team, that it’s not about us. It’s not about us, we are facilitators, and you know, we are we are we’re servants, we’re you know, it’s our job to take care of this organization on behalf of the business community. But it isn’t about it isn’t about Adrienne Cole. It’s not about it’s not about us. It’s a and so we really don’t care about the credit. We’re really just trying to move the community forward so that it’s a great place for us to live and work now but will continue to be a great place to live and work for many, many years to come. And I think that chambers and the special people who run chambers get that?

Brandon Burton 34:37
Absolutely. Well I love the examples that you shared with us today. I think you guys are setting a great example for further chambers Ville to look to and learn from do some r&d, do their the ripping off and duplicating and I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information or ways for listeners to reach out and connect they’d like to learn more about some of these partnerships and roundtables you guys have established and and yeah, you’re doing things what would be the best way for for someone to reach out and connect?

Connect with Adrienne Cole

Adrienne Cole 35:11
Absolutely happy to so my email is acole@raleighchamber.org. And feel free to shoot me an email anytime and then my amazing executive assistant Kelly Lacombe who is wonderful on so many ways. Well schedule a time for us to connect. And you know, I’m always always happy to share anything that we’re doing if folks find it helpful.

Brandon Burton 35:39
That is very helpful. I appreciate that. And we’ll get your email in the show notes for this episode too, which will be found at chamberchat.podcast.com/episode149. Adrienne, this has been a pleasure to visit with you I’d love again these examples and and I love to see good synergy and teamwork coming together and being successful at it. So great job.

Adrienne Cole 36:04
And thanks so much. It makes the work fun for sure. I appreciate you having me on. Thank you.

Brandon Burton 30:28
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