Ted Townsend to become president and CEO of Greater Memphis Chamber

Ted Townsend, current chief economic development officer for the Greater Memphis Chamber, will be the next president and chief executive officer of the organization.

The chamber board voted Thursday to name Townsend the president and CEO of the institution. He will take over from current president and CEO Beverly Robertson.

Robertson will be leaving the chamber at the end of the year, it was announced Thursday. She plans to return to TRUST Marketing, the business she started with her husband, Howard Robertson. The board unanimously approved Townsend as her successor.

In her remaining time at the helm of the chamber, she hopes to raise $10 million to $15 million for the group.

Doug Browne, chairman of the chamber’s board and president of Peabody Hotels & Resorts, said Townsend had big shoes to fill in leading the chamber but that he believed Townsend was up to the job.

“Ted has both the passion and the economic development experience to make Memphis one of the fastest-growing and prosperous cities in the nation. The board is 100% behind his vision to make our region an economic powerhouse," he said in a statement.

Robertson was first named interim president and CEO after her predecessor, Phil Trenary, was shot and killed in Downtown Memphis in September 2018. She assumed the post in January of 2019. The "interim" modifier was dropped from her title in April of that year.

Richard W. Smith, past board chair and president and CEO-elect of FedEx Express, said Robertson brought vision and compassion to the chamber after Trenary was killed.

“We needed a champion to carry on the growth-focused ‘prosperity for all’ mission that Phil had started, and to build and improve upon it. Beverly was that champion. A trailblazer who became the right leader at the right time, she leaves our Chamber better than she found it," he said.

Smith also said he was confident Townsend would build on Robertson's work.

Before she took the helm at the chamber, Robertson had served as the president of the National Civil Rights Museum.

Robertson, who was the first Black president and CEO of the chamber, said her tenure came amidst "protest, politics and the pandemic."

“I stepped into the organization at a critical time. This work was more of a mission than a job. But my administration has been marked by inclusion — on our staff, in our community, and in the diverse voices we’re listening to — and by an entrepreneurial spirit that has led me to launch initiatives that others may have never considered,” she said.

She also praised Townsend and said her successor cared about the city and the team at the chamber and is an expert in the field of economic development.

He said he owed his predecessor a great debt, especially for her work on putting diversity and inclusion at the heart of the chamber's mission.

“In a majority-minority city, the only sustainable growth is inclusive growth, which is why we included bold minority inclusion goals in our recently announced Prosper Memphis 2030 plan to add 50,000 new, quality jobs," Townsend said.

Before joining the chamber full-time, Townsend was splitting his time between the University of Memphis and the chamber. He transitioned fully into his post with the chamber in October. Before starting a partnership between the two entities, he had served as chief economic development and government relations officer for the university since 2018.

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During the overlap between Townsend and Robertson at the chamber, several significant economic development announcements have been made. The largest was the announcement of Blue Oval City, a Ford plant that will be located between Memphis and Jackson and will produce electric F-150s and electric vehicle batteries.

“Memphis has momentum and it’s about to get even better,” Townsend said. “We have fully recovered the jobs we lost in the pandemic, we just had our best year ever for economic development, and we have more projects in our pipeline than ever before. A tsunami of opportunity is coming, and when it does, the Chamber will be leading the charge to make sure this prosperity is felt across Memphis.”

Corinne S Kennedy covers economic development and healthcare for The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached at CorinneSKennedy@CommercialAppeal.com 

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Ted Townsend to become president, CEO of Greater Memphis Chamber