Little Rock Regional Chamber -

Chesshir Named Incoming Chair of National Chamber Executives Association

Jay Chesshir, CCE, president and CEO of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, was elected to serve as Chairman Elect of the Board of Directors of the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) at the association’s 101st Annual Convention in Montreal, Canada, August 11-14. ACCE is a national organization of professionals who manage chambers of commerce. Attendance at the Montreal convention exceeded 900 members.

Chesshir will become ACCE’s 2016-17 Chairman of the Board at the association’s Annual Convention in Savannah, Ga., in August of 2016. Chesshir has served as the 15th President and CEO of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce since 2006. He began his career at the Little Rock Regional Chamber in February 2005, serving as Economic Development Vice President, Senior Staff Executive for Fifty for the Future, and Executive Director of the Metro Little Rock Alliance, an eleven county marketing coalition dedicated to central Arkansas’s becoming recognized as the premier location for new and expanding business within the mid-south. Under his leadership, the Chamber has directly worked over $1.9 billion in new and expanded capital investment in the region, accounting for over 13,700 new jobs and $479 million in annual payroll.

He previously served as President of the Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce and Garland County Economic Development Corporation.

ACCE's mission is to support and develop chamber professionals to lead businesses and their communities. The association provides the tools executives need to improve the management and operations of their chambers, including identifying and analyzing trends affecting our nation's communities, establishing benchmarking studies, and sharing best practices.

It was 1915 when S. Cristy Mead of New York City, the founding board chairman of ACCE, said in his opening remarks at ACCE’s first convention in St. Louis, that no matter its size, the “modern” chamber of commerce represents “the law of co-operation and co-ordination of effort on the part of individual units [of the business community] for greater efficiency in the accomplishment of results beneficial to the community.”

“That vision and mission remains unchanged today,” said Mick Fleming, ACCE’s president. “Chambers today are positioned to do more in advocacy and community building than at any time in our history, and ACCE’s Board develops strategies and policies to bolster ACCE’s ongoing support of chamber execs seeking to make the world a better place, one community at a time.”