By Monika P. Zuluaga, President & CEO, Northern Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce
Someone said something to me this year that I haven’t been able to shake.
“Chambers of Commerce lack innovation.”
I wasn’t offended. I actually agreed.
After a year as president and CEO of the Northern Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce, I believe businesses need organizations like ours more than ever. But we have to keep evolving to stay relevant to the businesses and leaders of tomorrow. That’s the biggest lesson of year one.
For a lot of people, a chamber means networking events, breakfasts, golf outings, ribbon cuttings. Those things matter. Relationships build businesses. But most of the chamber’s real work happens in between, where nobody is taking a photo.
It’s building relationships across the state and throughout the country. It’s helping a small business owner figure out how to scale. It’s someone picking up the phone instead of routing you to a chatbot. It’s supporting a non-profit pivot during difficult times.
This year, our chamber monitored more than 300 pieces of legislation affecting Rhode Island businesses. We testified at the Statehouse on issues affecting our state’s competitiveness. We worked alongside other chambers to represent employers who don’t have time to track every bill in the General Assembly. They’re busy running their businesses. Part of our job is to pay attention while they do.
But sitting in this seat has changed how I think about what even counts as a “business issue.”
Talk about workforce shortages long enough and you end up talking about housing. Talk about workforce participation and childcare enters the conversation. Talk about the future supply of skilled workers and suddenly you’re talking about what’s happening in our classrooms today.
These issues are connected.
Education has become a real focus for me. Research from the U.S. Census Bureau and Harvard University found that nearly six in 10 young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up, and eight in 10 live within 100 miles.
Sit with that for a second.
The students in our classrooms right now aren’t some abstract future workforce. Many will become the employees, entrepreneurs, managers and community leaders of the exact places where they’re growing up. If we want a stronger workforce tomorrow, business has a stake in what’s happening in our classrooms today.
This past year, I pushed our business leaders to pay closer attention to K-12 education, traveled outside Rhode Island to see how other communities approach workforce development, completed Talent Pipeline Management training through the U.S. Chamber Foundation, and advocated for greater investment in career and technical education.
What’s encouraged me most is the response at home. Our business leaders are asking questions. They’re engaged. They understand that today’s education outcomes become tomorrow’s workforce realities.
So now comes the harder question: what do we do with that interest? To me, that’s part of the race to relevance facing chambers.
Chambers have supported businesses and local economies for generations. The organizations that eventually became the Northern Rhode Island Chamber have roots here stretching back more than a century. That history matters. But history alone doesn’t guarantee relevance, and innovation doesn’t require throwing out everything that came before us.
The method changes. The purpose doesn’t.
We bring people together. We advocate for businesses. We connect leaders to information, resources and one another. In a business environment that rarely feels steady, I’ve learned there’s real value in being a trusted, reliable institution.
But being steady can’t mean standing still.
Rhode Island has a lot of organizations doing exceptional work. We don’t need to recreate every program or own every solution. The better question is: who’s already doing great work, and how can we help make it better?
No chamber can solve Rhode Island’s housing challenges, childcare gaps, or workforce pipeline alone. But we can convene. We can bring an employer into a conversation with an educator, connect a small-business owner to a resource they didn’t know existed, and put organizations working on the same problem in the same room. We can make sure the voice of business is present when decisions about our economy are being made.
Here’s what I’ve come to believe, and I try to hold myself to this too: a lot of what gets called innovation is chasing credit more than chasing mission. Starting something new, launching a program with your name on it, being able to say you built it. That’s not mission-based work. The question isn’t what can I start. It’s what are we here to do.
For a Chamber, I think the answer is simple. We’re here to make it easier for people to CHOOSE Rhode Island. Not just to visit, but to live here, build a business here, raise a family here. And that choice doesn’t happen in a vacuum. People are weighing us against our neighbors. Every program, every policy position, every partnership should be measured against one question: does this make it more likely someone chooses Rhode Island over Massachusetts, Connecticut, or wherever else they’re looking?
Maybe that’s what an innovative chamber actually looks like. Not an organization constantly reinventing itself to prove it’s relevant, but one willing to ask what the mission actually requires, even when the answer is uncomfortable or unglamorous.
One year in, I have more questions than when I started. I consider that a good thing. My job isn’t just to preserve an institution that’s served this region for generations. It’s to make sure it’s just as valuable to the next generation of businesses and leaders.
The race to relevance isn’t about becoming something entirely new.
It’s about making sure we continue to matter.
