Sign In
Free Newsletter
Charlottesville regional chamber names prez and CEO
Natalie S. Masri will assume the role of president and CEO of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce on June 1, the chamber announced Tuesday. She succeeds Andrea Copeland, who has served as the chamber’s interim president since February and will become the chamber’s chief operating officer. Masri most recently founded Brave May LLC, a […]
Shenandoah Valley SBDC names new director
Shenandoah Valley’s Small Business Development Center, based in Harrisonburg, has named Allison Dugan its newest director. Dugan started with the regional SBDC as a part-time program manager in 2014 and became a business adviser in 2015, adding the title of assistant director in 2019. She took on the leadership role May 1, after serving as […]
Civic Leadership Institute names new CEO
Mary Kate Andris has been named the next president and CEO of the Norfolk-based Civic Leadership Institute in Hampton Roads. Civic aims to connect executive leaders to improve life in Hampton Roads and runs an eight-month executive program, recognizes philanthropic leaders with its Darden Awards and hosts a scholars program for Old Dominion University and […]
Hampton Roads organizations merge to form new roundtable
Two Hampton Roads regional economic development organizations are merging to establish the Hampton Roads Executive Roundtable, with the goal of unifying their efforts. The new organization will combine Hampton Roads Business Roundtable, established in 2012, and Reinvent Hampton Roads, established in 2016, with the primary mission of coordinating the alignment of the region’s economic develop[...]
On the move
Megan Baker, economic development director, Roanoke County In October 2022, Baker was hired to step into the big shoes of Jill Loope, the county’s longtime economic development director who is set to retire in July. A North Carolina State and Indiana University graduate, Baker came to the Roanoke Valley from the Atlanta area, where she […]
FLOYD E. MILLER II
Before taking over the leadership of Metropolitan Business League, a nonprofit association that supports small, women- and minority-owned businesses in Richmond, Miller worked in human services, education and criminal justice and spent 17 years as director of urban programs for Special Olympics Virginia. Those seemingly diverse jobs shared one commonality: They all gave him the […]
AISHA BOWE
The daughter of a Bahamian immigrant who worked as a taxi driver in Michigan, Bowe was told by a high school counselor to become a cosmetologist. She decided instead to listen to her father’s advice and took a math class at a local community college. Somewhat to her surprise, she excelled and earned degrees in […]
MARCIA CONSTON
Conston saw early on the value that education has for marginalized communities. She knew her goal was “to become someone to effect change in the lives of young people. And I knew that education would be the path to do that.” Conston began her career as a college administrator at her alma mater, Mississippi’s Jackson […]
ANGELA D. REDDIX
Getting ARDX up and running was not a 9-to-5 job. “It took saying ‘yes’ when others said ‘no,’” says Reddix, who founded her health care management and IT consulting firm in 2006. Her years of heavy lifting paid off, and ARDX has won more than $200 million in government contracts and is planning a $2.4 […]
THOMAS HASTY
Although Virginia has had notable Black banking leaders — including Maggie Walker at the start of the 20th century — it’s still a business that has not had a lot of African American representation in the C-suite. In 1999, after working for BB&T, Hasty took control of his fate and became a co-founder of Suffolk-based […]
KEN AMPY
Growing up in rural Dinwiddie County, Ampy saw firsthand the power of community. After studying computer science at Old Dominion University, he built a career as a programmer analyst and developer for Dominion Virginia Power and Capital One Financial Corp. before launching staffing and consulting firm Astyra Corp. in 1997 in Richmond. Throughout, Ampy has […]
CHANDRA BRIGGMAN
The leader since 2020 of a Richmond-based innovation incubator that includes a biotech park, startup development and a newly invigorated cluster accelerator for pharmaceutical research and manufacturing, Briggman is off to a fast start. Growing up in a town of 2,000 in rural South Carolina, she was inspired by her parents to pursue innovation. “Neither […]
