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Search funds grow in popularity for entrepreneurs

SUMMARY:

  • A search fund offers a path to own and operate an established business.
  • are somewhat new to Virginia, but they’re growing in popularity.
  • Virginia is well-positioned for search fund investment because of its business-friendly climate and relatively low cost of living.
  • Generational shifts are driving interest in professional autonomy.

Coming from Stanford University, Edward Silva was well aware of the power of search funds, a less risky way to build a self-owned business.

H. Irving Grousbeck, who co-founded Continental Cablevision and started the Stanford Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, coined the phrase “search fund” in 1984, referring to people who seek from and then “search for, acquire and lead a privately held company for the medium to long term, typically five to 10 years,” according to the Stanford CES’ 2024 study on search funds.

Although search funds are popular on the West Coast, they’re just getting started in Virginia. The Stanford study shows why it’s lucrative. Nearly 70% of the 681 search funds researchers examined in the United States and Canada were profitable. But Virginia had only nine search-fund-acquired businesses in the study, compared with 55 in California.

Yet Silva views it as a growing trend in the commonwealth.

After graduating from Stanford, the California native built a search fund and acquired Charlottesville-based másLabor, which connects businesses with migrant workers coming to the U.S. on H2-A and H2-B work visas, from prior owner Libby Whitley, who was retiring, and he moved his family to Virginia in 2021. Whitley, Silva explains, did not want to sell her self-built business to a corporate conglomerate or private equity firm.

“As neither of those things, I gave them a nice alternative to get paid well and make sure their business still carried out their legacy,” says Silva.

He grew the business, acquiring and merging it with Georgia-based AgWorks H2 in 2022, into a firm that brings in more than 70,000 foreign laborers annually.

Silva left másLabor last year but remains an investor in the company. He’s in the process of another search, this one self-funded, for a Virginia business he hopes to grow. He says the commonwealth is well-positioned for such investment because of its relative tax-friendliness, a deep pool of available business talent and affordable cost of living.

Those factors and a shift in ideology spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, Silva says, have helped the search fund model see a lot of success in Virginia.

“You had all these people who, for one reason or another, their life was being reevaluated,” Silva says. “A lot of people wanted more freedom, more autonomy.”

Generational appeal

When Megan McGee graduated from Florida State University, she began her career working for a handful of small businesses in the Sunshine State.

A child of small business owners, McGee saw the impact they can have in their communities. But what she didn’t know was “how the heck can you start a business or buy a business of value if you don’t have millions of dollars yourself?” she says.

So she enrolled at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business to find the answer.

It was there that McGee learned about through acquisition — the idea of acquiring already-successful small-to-medium-sized businesses rather than starting from scratch.

“At first I thought it was fake,” McGee says. “It sounded too good to be true: Somebody who barely knows me will give me hundreds of thousands of dollars, potentially millions of dollars, to buy a company and make me CEO.”

After a brief foray as a searcher, as such entrepreneurs are known, McGee pivoted to education. She advises students as the director of at Darden’s Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology.

Joel Ankney, who operates Virginia Beach-based Ankney Law, has made his living for nearly a decade assisting searchers when it comes time to close deals.

“Virginia, at least in my purview, is just starting to talk about it,” Ankney says of search funds. “It’s a hot topic right now. Very hot.”

Ankney closes between 20 and 25 transactions per year, and most of his clients are self-funded searchers. Most use federal Small Business Administration loans capped at $5 million, so the businesses changing hands are relatively small and typically in service industries, everything from construction equipment firms to custodial services. As with Silva, many searchers are younger professionals purchasing businesses from baby boomers who are looking to retire.

Silva sees the trend catching on in Virginia for the same reasons he chose to move here from California — lower cost of living, business-friendly policies and plenty of skilled employees. McGee agrees.

“I’m working with more students who want to search, acquire and operate a business, and they specifically want to stay in Virginia,” the U.Va. educator says.

And McGee doesn’t see this trend slowing down when she looks at Gen Z, millennials and beyond.

“People like autonomy,” she explains. “We’re seeing fewer people staying at the same job for decades at a time.”

2025 Virginia C-Suite Awards: Private Companies with 500+ Employees

 

Franklin

CEO, , VIRGINIA BEACH

In 2012, Franklin, his father and two other partners founded the Franklin Johnston Group after leaving S.L. Nusbaum Realty. Franklin took over the role of chief operating officer, and in 2023, he succeeded his father, Wendell Franklin, as CEO. With co-founder Tom Johnston having stepped down in 2024, the company is now known as the Franklin Group. It manages about 200 properties across 10 states and Washington, D.C., employing about 700 people. Over the past decade, the business has developed more than 10,000 new multifamily units across Virginia and North Carolina, totaling more than $1.6 billion in financed projects.

Franklin also is deeply involved in his community, including as vice chair of the Virginia Beach Development Authority board and chairman and president of the Chesapeake Bay Wine Classic Foundation board. He was tapped as 2022 King Neptune for Virginia Beach’s Neptune Festival and serves on the festival’s board. A Virginia Wesleyan University graduate, he also serves on William & Mary’s board of visitors.

“We actively seek out ways to give back, whether through partnerships, volunteer efforts or initiatives that support local growth and well-being,” Franklin says. “We are not just managing properties; we are helping shape neighborhoods and creating places people are proud to call home.”

Best advice I’ve received: Work hard, stay honest and lead with transparency. It’s straightforward, but it’s stuck with me because those values build real trust and long-term success. At Franklin Group, I strive to set that tone every day.

Hobbs

CHARLES ‘BRAD’ HOBBS

CEO, , NORFOLK

The umbrella company for HVAC equipment brands in 32 states, Air Control Concepts was founded in May 2024 in a rebranding of Hobbs & Associates, Hobbs’ family-owned HVAC business started in 1984. Based in Norfolk, the business has more than 100 offices and employs 1,750 people, including more than 275 HVAC technicians. Backed by private equity firms Blackstone and Madison Dearborn Partners, Air Control Concepts announced its acquisition in January of Midwest Machinery, a century-old HVAC manufacturers’ sales representative.

A Virginia Tech graduate who serves on the university’s board of visitors, Hobbs is close friends with Gov. Glenn Youngkin, whom he aided with fundraising and as part of the governor’s transition team. Hobbs also has lent significant support to area nonprofits, including the American Heart Association’s Hampton Roads branch, Norfolk Christian Schools and Virginia Beach’s Neptune Festival.

Hobbs says that Air Control Concepts has a culture “deeply rooted in the family business my father founded over 40 years ago. These values include family first, compassion and empathy, integrity and honesty, and empowerment and accountability. We build this business first and foremost with a people-first, profit-second philosophy.”

Best advice I’ve received: It’s been said that business is a long lesson in humility. I was blessed to learn that lesson early in my career from my father. People will always work well together in an environment driven by humble leaders who desire to build as a team.

Schools

PRESIDENT AND CEO, , VIRGINIA BEACH

Having joined Chartway, one of the state’s largest credit unions, in 2008, Schools has led its growth into a $3 billion institution with more than 500 employees and over 260,000 members in Virginia, Utah and Texas. At a time when many financial institutions are closing or consolidating branches, Chartway has expanded, opening new offices in Norfolk and Virginia Beach in the past year.

Schools became Chartway’s president and CEO in 2015 and served on the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions board between 2017 and 2023. Before Chartway, he worked for Chase, Capital One and Crestar banks.

A graduate of Virginia Tech and Virginia Commonwealth University, from which he earned his MBA, Schools serves as a trustee of the Chartway Promise Foundation, a nonprofit that has provided $16 million to assist children with medical problems. He also was chair of the transition board for the creation of America’s Credit Unions, which resulted from the 2023 merger of NAFCU and the Credit Union National Association.

How I foster a positive culture: I aim to be honest when it comes to the environmental forces — whether economic, pandemic, cultural or otherwise — that may create a change in the direction of how we operate, but these don’t change who we are. We are committed to the fact that the balance of well-being and productivity of our team members drives the strength of Chartway.

Setian

PRESIDENT AND CEO, SOSi, FAIRFAX COUNTY

The son of SOSi founder Sosi Setian, Julian Setian joined the federal contracting company in 1994, just after graduating from Columbia University. The company was only 5 years old then and still finding its footing, but today SOSi is a major defense and tech contractor that has won more than $5 billion in federal contracts and made $200 million in acquisitions since Setian became CEO in 2001.

Although the company’s original focus was on providing language translation and transcription services for federal agencies such as the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration, SOSi has grown its client list to include the Department of Defense and the intelligence community. In 2011, SOSi founded Exovera, a software and data science subsidiary.

Setian and his family support many civic and business organizations in Virginia, including Cornerstones, which advocates for disadvantaged people in Fairfax County, and he sits on the executive council of the Professional Services Council. SOSi is a corporate sponsor of the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, and Setian’s family established an endowment to promote early childhood arts education through the foundation. He says a quote from theologian, philosopher and physician Albert Schweitzer provides words to live by: “The three most important ways to lead people are by example, by example, by example.”

How I foster a positive culture: The key is maintaining a strong identity to which employees feel connected. At SOSi, we spend a lot of time talking about who we are versus what we do. The contracting industry is saturated with service businesses. We adapt to the policy and spending changes, but remain steadfast in our long-term commitment to customers, employees and partners.

Shriver

CEO, ,

In 2020, Shriver became Atlantic Constructors’ new CEO, taking over from its founding leader, Art Hungerford. An industrial and commercial contractor with offices across the state, ACI has grown significantly over the past five years. Formerly the company’s executive vice president of construction operations, Shriver led a $25 million expansion to quintuple ACI’s fabrication capabilities, building a 170,000-square-foot plant next to the company’s headquarters.

Trained as a mechanical engineer at Virginia Tech, Shriver has an MBA from James Madison University and holds certificates in lean construction and medical gas inspection, as well as being LEED-accredited. He also instituted a “[Root] Beer with the Boss” program, events where Shriver visits worksites with a cooler of root beer to share with ACI workers while having conversations.

Acquired in April by Texas-based TriplePoint MEP, ACI has worked on major projects like the restoration of Richmond’s Altria Theater, construction of a 515,000-square-foot Microsoft data center in Mecklenburg County and multiple buildings for Virginia Commonwealth University and VCU Health.

Shriver says that a quote from Mike Tyson has helped him stay prepared for life’s unexpected challenges: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

How I prepare my team for success: There is a major skills gap in the construction industry, so we believe strongly in providing opportunities and training for people to build a lasting career. We have programs at Atlantic to bring in people without any construction experience and give them the tools they need to succeed in our industry.

 

2025 Virginia C-Suite Awards: Small Private Companies

Geller

PRESIDENT AND CEO, THE , FAIRFAX COUNTY

After having two children, Geller decided to create something else — a law firm that enables women to be successful attorneys and moms. Since its 2011 founding, the Geller Law Group has grown to 17 attorneys and 19 support professionals serving 18,000 clients across Northern Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Maryland, with offices in Fairfax and Washington.

“I saw far too many incredibly talented women leaving large law firms because those environments just weren’t built to support working parents,” Geller says. “I knew there had to be a better way.”

Embracing work-from-home technology before the pandemic, Geller and her firm have received numerous awards for helping maintain work-life balance, including 2023 woman business owner of the year, awarded by the national chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners. She has spoken at a press conference at the U.S. Capitol with former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, advocating for women-friendly workplace policies such as paid leave, flex scheduling and telecommuting.

Geller is also very active in community service. Her firm contributes volunteer hours, money and goods to regional food banks, and it has created a “robust legal resource center” on its website for LGBTQ+ people navigating legal issues.

Best advice I’ve received: It was from a friend who told me to think of all the balls I’m juggling in life — work, family, health, community, everything — and recognize that some of those balls are made of rubber, and some are made of glass. This advice helps me take a breath, figure out what truly needs my attention in the moment and let go of the rest — at least for now.

Out & About June 2025

1. Personal finance educator Tiffany “The Budgetnista” Aliche headlined ‘s Financial Success for Women Summit April 15 in Richmond. (Photo courtesy Virginia Credit Union)

2. (L to R) Philanthropist Kimmy Duong; Ken Ball, dean of ‘s College of Engineering and Computing; and George Mason President Gregory Washington at an April 25 event announcing a $20 million gift from Duong’s family foundation (Photo by Ron Aira. Courtesy George Mason University)

3. , R-Westmoreland, hosted a May 2 roundtable discussion with constituents in Glen Allen to talk about their experiences navigating Social Security and Medicare. (Photo courtesy Office of U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman)

4. Representatives from Virginia and Communities in Schools of Petersburg held an April 23 ribbon-cutting and launch event for a new interactive medical classroom at Petersburg’s Vernon Johns Middle School. HCA Healthcare gave $25,000 to the project. (Photo courtesy Communities In Schools of Petersburg and )

5. held a May 6 celebration for International Firefighters’ Day, recognizing the Danville Fire Department and highlighting the casino’s gift to the city of a new $1.6 million fire truck. (Photo courtesy Caesars Virginia)

Incubators help entrepreneurs determine viability

SUMMARY:

  • incubators across the state help entrepreneurs determine whether their business plans are viable.
  • Through these programs, entrepreneurs test and refine business ideas and gather customer feedback.
  • Entrepreneurs with viable ideas often move on to accelerators for next steps.

Richmond husband-and-wife tech entrepreneurs Kyle Johnson and Mari Soonsoo Bae were on a path to creating their first business together. Johnson’s technology and AI acumen and Bae’s business school knowledge were the perfect pairing.

But it wasn’t until they joined the Idea Factory, a program developed by Richmond-based business incubator Startup Virginia, last year that their venture began to take full shape.

Once the couple started asking questions and gathering feedback from potential customers, they saw the problem that they needed to solve, as well as the solution: Data analyst teams across corporate America needed a central place to store, organize and share data with many sources. That’s what their business, Ara Platforms, provides.

“It was constantly interviewing and really learning to leverage your network,” Johnson says. “That really helped me snap out of some of my own biases. You can start to fall in love with your ideas. You can start to think that if it works in my head, people will buy it.”

Startup incubators abound in Virginia, but for early-stage entrepreneurs, programs that help determine whether their business plans are viable are often valuable — even when the answer is “no.” Here’s a sample of incubators across the state that aim to answer that question.

Idea Factory is a seven-week cohort program that brings aspiring entrepreneurs representing a variety of industries together to develop and test their business ideas. The process is called , which involves gathering feedback from people to find out if there is a target audience and a need for a business idea and who and what that audience is.

“It’s the watermark behind your business,” says Kip Hart, startup engagement manager for Startup Virginia, which supports entrepreneurs and in Central Virginia.

“If we can help them focus on their target market, then the effectiveness of their marketing and development of their product will be much higher,” he says. “Our tagline is, ‘Why not build a business on insights instead of assumptions?’”

Through the Idea Factory, entrepreneurs create a list of 100 potential customers and then choose 12 to interview. They ask questions that key in on how or if their business idea solves a real problem. A survey with feedback from potential customers also gives entrepreneurs useful data.

At the end of the program, entrepreneurs learn whether the idea has a solution, but customers don’t buy it; whether they should proceed cautiously and consider changing the idea’s direction; or whether the venture is viable, says Hart.

Viable businesses typically are invited to continue with Startup Virginia’s incubator, which focuses on high-growth, scalable ventures.

Not every entrepreneur’s idea pans out, but Hart says all discoveries are important revelations.

“You may realize that you don’t want to be in this startup world,” he says. “That is positive. It saves you time and energy. You may learn you don’t want to be a founder but [still] love the startup ecosystem. You may explore opportunities within the startup world.”

, part of Staunton’s Shenandoah Community Capital Fund, has a similar philosophy. During the eight-session program, aspiring entrepreneurs learn to identify target customers, define a problem their venture can solve, establish business and marketing plans, and more.

The bootcamp also asks participants to survey potential buyers during the customer discovery process and encourages them to go beyond their personal contacts.

“We really stress to get outside of your friend group,” says Ryan Hall, SCCF’s executive director. “It is pretty incredible how many people think they have a good product and never ask anybody else or collect data.”

At the end of the eight weeks, some may realize that their startup idea is not feasible, Hall says: “That’s a win for us. We have given them the ability to see that.”

In Roanoke, a business incubator with a focus on building high-growth IT, health care and life science companies also offers a pre-accelerator program dubbed On RAMP. Held by the Regional Accelerator and Mentoring Program (RAMP), the program lets entrepreneurs test their ideas through customer discovery with guidance from business experts.

So far, about half of the entrepreneurs in the On RAMP program have feasible business ideas that are in development stages, says John Hagy, RAMP’s director. The goal, he says, is for most participants to move into the RAMP In Residence program, the next stage.

Meanwhile, as Johnson and Bae continue to build Ara, Startup Virginia remains an important resource for them. The couple meet regularly with mentors and other colleagues involved with the incubator. With the incubator team, Bae also has practiced business pitches for potential .

“I really believe that we found a very fruitful problem to solve,” Bae says. “I know that so many people who work in corporate America experience the same problems and the same frustrations. We want to solve that pain.”

2025 Virginia C-Suite Awards: Government

BENEVENTO

PRESIDENT AND CEO, VIRGINIA INNOVATION PARTNERSHIP CORP., RICHMOND

Formerly a deputy state secretary of commerce and trade, Benevento started his career at Goldman Sachs and private equity firm THL Partners and was managing director of an investment firm. A graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Business School, Benevento was named in 2023 interim president and CEO for , a state-funded entity that supports Virginia’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. The following year, he was made VIPC’s permanent leader.

During the past two years, Benevento launched a $100 million private sector investment initiative, Virginia Invests, focused on sourcing outside capital for state-based . Last year, VIPC also celebrated Virginia’s return to the top 10 states for investment, as the commonwealth saw $2.48 billion in deal value in 2023. VIPC also has helped promote the fact that there have been 10,000 high-growth startups created in Virginia since Gov. Glenn Youngkin took office in 2022.

In nominating Benevento, VIPC board member Richard Hall noted that VIPC’s CEO “constantly challenges the organization to move faster and reimagine new ways of doing things to amplify the impact we can have in the commonwealth,” as well as being a “great collaborator who works extensively with many diverse external stakeholders in a solution-oriented and nonpartisan manner.”

Benevento serves on several boards around the state, including the Northern Virginia Technology Council, the Virginia Space Grant Consortium, and the Alliance for Building Better Medicine. In a 2024 interview, Benevento wrote, “EQ (emotional intelligence) is just as important as IQ, and there’s no substitute for having a ‘degree’ in GSD — Getting Stuff Done.”

CASEY

COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR,

Casey joined Chesterfield County as its administrator in 2016, but he’s been active in local since 1990, serving as a deputy county administrator for both Henrico and Hanover counties. A graduate of the University of Richmond, he earned a master’s degree and doctorate from Virginia Commonwealth University in public policy and public administration.

Also qualified as a CPA, Casey began his career at KPMG, one of the Big Four accounting firms. As a public servant, he has held many statewide leadership roles, including serving as president of the Virginia Local Government Management Association and the Virginia Government Finance Officers’ Association. He was also a member of the national GFOA’s executive board.

Chesterfield has seen both economic and population booms in recent years, landing major projects like Lego Group’s $1 billion toy factory, Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ nearly $3 billion commercial fusion power plant, and Danish electrolyzer manufacturer Topsoe’s $400 million manufacturing plant. Meanwhile, the county saw its population rise by 8.3% between 2020 and 2024.

Chesterfield Economic Development Director H. Garrett Hart III says Casey “possesses an extraordinary blend of strategic insight and operational expertise,” as well as “ethical leadership and unwavering integrity.” Casey also has served on several boards and councils, including the Appomattox River Water Authority and the Asian & Latino Solidarity Alliance of Central Virginia.

How I create a positive culture at work: Keep engaged and smiling, create memorable stories others can then share, and laugh at yourself with humility and self-deprecating humor.

VITHOULKAS

JOHN A. VITHOULKAS

COUNTY MANAGER,

A native of Greece who arrived in Virginia as an infant, Vithoulkas graduated from Henrico County’s J.R. Tucker High School in 1985 and began working for the county as a budget analyst in 1997. Since 2013, Vithoulkas has served as Henrico’s county manager, overseeing its operations, recommending a $1 billion operating and capital budget annually to the county board of supervisors, and leading more than 4,000 employees. In 2021, Henrico County was recognized as a top workplace by the Richmond Times-Dispatch and as one of America’s Best-In-State Employers by Forbes in 2024.

A graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he earned a master’s degree in public administration, Vithoulkas has led multiple initiatives and programs to improve life for Henrico residents, including two bond referendums totaling more than $930 million that funded 47 capital projects.

Vithoulkas has also worked with supervisors to cap real estate taxes for older and disabled residents, and in 2023, the county opened the Henrico Sports & Events Center, which attracts sporting competitions and other events at the site of a former mall. Earlier this year, he announced plans to rebid rights to redevelop the former Best Products corporate campus into an arena-centered mixed-use development.

Best advice I ever received: My first supervisor told me, “Never fear failure. If you do not take risks, you will never fail, and if you never fail, you will never grow.” Henrico County is a laboratory for “Let’s try this,” and if something has never been done before, so much the better.

2025 Virginia C-Suite Awards: Small Public Companies

Nester

PRESIDENT AND CEO, AND ROANOKE GAS, ROANOKE

Founded in 1883, Roanoke Gas supplies natural gas to more than 60,000 customers in the Roanoke Valley, and RGC Midstream, one of parent company RGC Resources’ subsidiaries, owns a 1% interest in the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Nester was tapped in 2020 as president and CEO of RGC Resources, after serving as president of Roanoke Gas since 2019 and chief financial officer since 2012. After years of delay amid court actions, the 303-mile pipeline is now active in western Virginia, and Roanoke Gas now can supply natural gas to Franklin County’s Summit View site, with a new gate station built last year.

Outside of work, Nester is board chair for Total Action for Progress, a nonprofit assisting families in need across the Roanoke Valley and Allegheny Highlands. (Roanoke Gas has helped provide HVAC equipment for local residents to make their homes safer and more comfortable through TAP’s Healthy Homes Roanoke initiative.) Nester also is a past chair of the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce and served on the Roanoke Regional Partnership’s executive committee. “We feel a strong responsibility to serve and support the Roanoke Valley,” Nester says, because of his company’s “deep roots” in the region.

What I focus on: Our top priority and core value is safety, both for our employees and the public. Just behind safety, our second core value is customer services. Beyond that, we emphasize teamwork by supporting one another and stepping in where help is needed.

 

2025 Virginia C-Suite Awards: Small Nonprofits

Schmidt

PRESIDENT AND CEO, , NORFOLK

Created by a group of about 200 Black women and 20 men in 1938 through the Works Progress Administration, the Norfolk Botanical Garden has a long history in Hampton Roads — a legacy Schmidt is working to extend through the $40 million Garden of Tomorrow project set to open this fall. Schmidt, who joined the garden in 2019 as its chief financial officer and vice president of human resources, was named its president and CEO in 2023.

A CPA who worked for a global wine company and has more than 20 years of experience in finance, operations, strategy and team development, Schmidt is now overseeing NBG’s largest ever expansion, including a new entry pavilion and parking area, as well as a 26,000-square-foot conservatory for rare and threatened plants. He has also been instrumental in raising money for the Garden of Tomorrow expansion, reaching more than 1,700 donors.

Before joining NBG, Schmidt held executive positions at Treasury Wine Estates, including leading the $600 million integration of the Diageo wine brand after acquisition, and he was interim vice president of finance for Gymboree as it emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2017 and 2018.

A graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Schmidt moved to Virginia when his wife took a job as a psychologist supporting the Navy.

On my organization and our role in the community: At Norfolk Botanical Garden, our focus is on creating experiences that nurture environmental learning, personal well-being and a deeper connection to the natural world. I also believe we have an opportunity and a responsibility to help position Hampton Roads as a destination of choice.

Stephens

PRESIDENT AND CEO, , NORFOLK

A retired Army colonel, Stephens joined the Hampton Roads Chamber as its leader in 2013. With a five-star accreditation by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the organization ranks among the top 1% of all chambers in the nation. Stephens is deeply involved in the coastal community, both through his job and serving 13 current appointments on boards, commissions and authorities, according to his nominator, Robert Pizzini, CEO of iFLY Virginia Beach and chair of the chamber’s board.

“The impact Bryan has goes beyond the Hampton Roads Chamber, as he is able to positively enact meaningful change through selfless service,” Pizzini writes. Stephens’ accomplishments at the chamber include developing Lead757, a civic leadership program, and creating a military advisory council to assist active duty and transitioning military members and their families.

A graduate of West Virginia University, the U.S. Army War College and Golden Gate University, Stephens was appointed by the governor to the Virginia Offshore Wind Development Authority. Before joining the chamber, he was president and CEO of Kalmar, a material handling equipment manufacturer in Texas. Before that, he had a distinguished 28-year career that included commands in Suffolk and Fort Drum, New York. Stephens is also a Lead Virginia alumnus.

Best advice I’ve ever received: Never settle for average! My favorite quote is one of Vince Lombardi’s: “The quality of an organization is in direct proportion to its commitment to excellence.” We’ve inculcated that philosophy into our culture.

Zajur

CEO AND FOUNDER, ,

Born in Mexico City, Zajur landed in Richmond with his family in the 1960s and worked at his family’s restaurant, La Siesta, which stayed in business for more than three decades, becoming a hub for Hispanic community life in Richmond. In 2000, Zajur founded the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which he still leads.

“I’m committed to building strategic partnerships across the public and private sectors to tackle challenges and uncover new opportunities,” he says. “Through our chamber, we empower Hispanic-owned businesses and professionals by providing access to knowledge, education, mentorship and vital connections that open doors.”

Zajur, who has been appointed to numerous commissions and task forces by several governors, also started the Virginia Hispanic Foundation in 2003 to provide resources to the Latino community. For 24 years, the Hispanic chamber has hosted Richmond’s ¿Qué Pasa? Festival, a free event featuring music and dance performances, food and artisans, and last year, the chamber held a second festival in Herndon. The chamber also started Trabaja VA, a workforce initiative to connect employers with bilingual workers.

The chamber’s 2024 annual report notes that there are more than 42,000 Hispanic-owned businesses in Virginia, with Latinos making up more than 11% of the state’s population and 10.7% of its labor force.

Best advice I ever received: “Never forget where you come from.” As an immigrant, a business owner and now president of the Virginia Hispanic Chamber, I carry the values, struggles and resilience of my roots. I lead with empathy because I’ve walked in the shoes of many of the people we serve.