MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The Greater Memphis Chamber has chosen Joshua Gunn, a North Carolina economic development executive, to become its next president and CEO after a national search, with his first day set for Dec. 10.
Gunn comes to Memphis from Durham, N.C., where he directed the city Office of Economic and Workforce Development. During his first year there he led recruiting for, and helped put together the public-private deal behind, a $1.4 billion AbbVie biomanufacturing plant, which the chamber described as the largest private investment Durham has ever landed. That project is expected to bring 734 permanent life sciences jobs.
Before Durham, he ran the Glendale Chamber of Commerce in the Phoenix West Valley, the third-largest chamber in Arizona, and spent four years leading the Peoria Area Chamber of Commerce in Illinois, where he started a regional talent recruiting coalition called Greater Peoria 2030.
He has also served on the national board of the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives, a group for chamber leaders across the country.
Duncan Williams, the interim president and CEO who also chairs the board, said the search committee saw Gunn as the clear pick and pointed to his background structuring public-private partnerships and closing large projects. Williams said the hire is meant to protect regional momentum and speed up the Prosper Memphis 2030 goals.
Gunn said in the announcement that he sees Memphis as a fit for his work blending business growth, policy and community work, and pointed to the region’s logistics base and growing role in advanced computing.
Founded in 1838, the chamber is a privately funded nonprofit and serves as the lead economic development group for the Memphis region.
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