BusinessSaturday, November 7
Greater Memphis Chamber names Joshua Gunn its next president and CEO
The 5AM Memphis team
The Greater Memphis Chamber has named Joshua Gunn president and CEO after an extensive search. Gunn, of Durham, North Carolina, is a former member of the National Board of Directors for the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives. The chamber announced it Friday.
Gunn most recently directed Durham's Office of Economic and Workforce Development. The chamber says he led recruitment there and helped structure the public-private partnership for the $1.4 billion AbbVie advanced biomanufacturing facility.
15+ yearsof executive leadership, the chamber says
That experience spans regional chambers of commerce, major project development and municipal economic policy.
Source: WREG.com
- Start date: early December; Daily Memphian lists Dec. 13
- Interim CEO now: Duncan Williams, board chairman
- Past chambers: Glendale, Arizona, and Peoria, Illinois
Gunn helped structure a $1.4 billion Durham project
- $1.4 billion
- AbbVie biomanufacturing facility in Durham
- 700+
- life science jobs the project is predicted to create
- $8 billion
- estimated economic impact
Source: WREG.com
Williams called Gunn “a proven chief executive who has sat on both sides of the table.” Gunn also has a hip-hop past: he was in The Thyrday, a group that recorded in Durham in the aughts, and he wrote on LinkedIn that Memphis is a city where music is “woven into its rhythm, culture, and very fabric.”
Sources: WREG.com, Memphis Flyer, Daily Memphian, The Commercial Appeal