As the largest chamber of commerce in the country — and one with solid finances — the Greater Cleveland Partnership (GCP) could attract a deep pool of well-qualified candidates in its search to replace retiring Joe Roman as CEO.
But because the organization plays a greater role than a traditional chamber, the board may favor a candidate with a strong background in the community and the region.
Several community leaders who have worked closely with the organization told Crain's they hope the board will take this opportunity to play a greater role in setting policy, and that they will chose a new leader who will work more collaboratively with other related organizations in the region.
GCP was created 16 years ago by the merger of three organizations, including the Greater Cleveland Growth Association, then the regional chamber. With that merger, it took on greater roles in business development and investment, employment and business diversity, workforce development and technology development. Because this larger role brings it into contact — and sometimes conflict — with other organizations in those areas, a number of civic leaders, who would not speak on the record, said they believe the organization needs someone who knows the territory and can move the organization to better collaborate with partners.
A committee, led by former GCP chair Beth Mooney, the retired CEO of KeyCorp, and current chair Scott Chaikin, has been created to conduct a nationwide search to replace Roman, who plans to depart in April 2021.
The search committee will, over the next 10 months, collect input from GCP members and other stakeholders in order to build a "profile" for the nationwide search and then hire an executive search firm, Chaikin said.
GCP will conduct this search as the city and country are struggling with double-digit unemployment, serious state and local government budget shortfalls and growing pressure to take diversity more seriously. It will be the organization's first search since its creation; Roman moved into the CEO chair after serving as executive director of Cleveland Tomorrow, one of GCP's predecessor organizations. In addition to the Growth Association, the third organization merged into GCP was the Greater Cleveland Roundtable, an organization that worked for minority economic inclusion.
"Everything is on the table," Chaikin said. "Experience with diversity (will be important), and we will look at a diverse pool of candidates. It should be a really appealing role, and I'm sure there will be a great pool interested in it."
Chaikin said GCP doesn't view Roman's retirement as an opportunity to completely overhaul the organization.
"We have many programs we are invested in, and they are important to the community and our membership," Chaikin said. "We want to continue to build on that."
He added the organization is involved in pressing economic concerns, including bringing high-speed internet access to areas, mostly in Cleveland's poorer neighborhoods, that are currently unserved; workforce development and employment, using federal Opportunity Zone incentives to develop underdeveloped neighborhoods; and, most recently, backing up its support of Cleveland City Council's declaration of racism as a public health crisis.
"GCP is a large and successful organization with a lot of things in motion," Chaikin said, "so part of the task is to keep those things in motion, because a lot of what we do is long-term and systemic."
Robert Smith, a former GCP chair who has been on numerous search committees, said he is confident GCP's committee will take the time to understand what the organization's needs are before even thinking about specific candidates.
"More often than not, the next person (to lead an organization) is 180 degrees from the incumbent," said Smith, who is a Cleveland-based partner in Cerity Partners, a national financial services firm. "That's not a judgment on the person leaving. It's just that the organization has benefited from the skills that person had, so whatever skills that person didn't have now become more obvious and need attention."
Smith said he hopes the search committee will cast a wide net, but he would not be surprised if someone local is chosen. He recalled the 2002 search to find a new president for the Growth Association.
"The national search didn't generate the candidate pool that we had hoped," he said. "My guess is there are local candidates that will be worthy of a national search profile. By doing a national search, it raises the standards and expectations, and then if they choose someone locally, that person will know that they stood the scrutiny of a high-level national search."
That 2002 search committee chose Dennis Eckart, a local attorney who had served in Congress from 1981-93.
Current board member Jose Feliciano stressed the importance of choosing a leader who checks off several boxes, including someone with "real-life business experience" and who understands and "represents diversity."
Any new leader, he added, would then be allowed to completely re-evaluate and reshape the organization with an eye to including the city's minority community in any economic development going forward.
"If it is the right person, it is implicit they have the leadership skills to identify issues, sell that vision and inspire," Feliciano said. "It goes without saying they have to be a great communicator."
Of more than 20 of 78 current GCP board members contacted, only Chaikin and Feliciano would talk about the transition. Most deferred to Chaikin. The rest either declined to comment or did not return phone calls. Roman responded by email late on Thursday, June 25, to indicate he was driving home from a week's vacation and would not be available to talk until the week of Monday, June 29.
The reluctance of the other board members to speak on the record was shared by other civic leaders closely associated with GCP, who would only speak if they were not identified by name or occupation.
Several said they hoped the board would, in the words of one person, "turn a corner" and take a stronger role in setting a direction for the organization. For too long, said another who had the opportunity to see inside the relationship between the board and Roman up close, policy was set by Roman and his staff, not the board.
"The board members have gotten so busy with their companies, they don't want any hassle," said another. "I think they care less about progress on issues and policies than about having no drama. Their companies have been so under stress, they gave a lot of the power to the CEO."
Roman has served as president and CEO of GCP since its inception in March 2004. He had advocated for the merger of the three organizations at the time to create a diverse and unified business voice to represent companies of all sizes in the region.
While these close observers universally give Roman credit for a number of efforts — the retention of 1,200 jobs at the Defense Finance Accounting Service and attracting the 2016 Republican National Convention, in particular — they agreed with Smith about the need to find a different kind of leader.
"Under (Roman's) leadership the organization has morphed to where the staff runs everything," one source said. "They aren't collaborative with organizations in town, and collaboration is so important these days. He was able to get away with that because he was able to manage the board and the chair."
Several noted that the area probably has too many nonprofits with a hand in economic development and added they hope that this search will lead to a broader assessment of their roles. In particular, several complained that GCP had become too territorial, seeking to control how business development efforts were conducted in its part of Northeast Ohio, primarily Cuyahoga County. As one said, "They didn't play well with others."
J.P. Nauseef, president of JobsOhio, which controls the large pot of state dollars used to attract new businesses and help expand existing businesses, quietly drove that point home when he spoke to the City Club of Cleveland in February.
Without mentioning GCP by name, Nauseef made it clear that businesses seeking state help for development throughout Northeast Ohio had to work through Team NEO, the regional economic development nonprofit that is one of six regional organizations in the state.
"They are our sole partner in the region for doing lead generation through systemic business retention and expansion visits with existing companies in Ohio," he said early in his remarks, referring to Team NEO. He repeated that statement later in his presentation.
Another person said they hope that the board will look beyond the turf scuffles between Team NEO and GCP and focus on the bigger picture.
"We have too many economic development organizations," the economic development consultant said, citing a handful of groups including BioEnterprise Corp., the Fund for our Economic Future, JumpStart Inc. and MAGNET and even including the Cleveland Foundation. "Is this the time to look at bringing several of them together? It's hard, especially the cultural part, but I just think this is the time to think about that."
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'Everything is on the table' as Greater Cleveland Partnership begins search for a new leader - Crain's Cleveland Business
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