1

Chamber Announces New President, Elizabeth Cromwell

written by Newspack Team | August 10, 2018

The Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors today announced that it has hired Elizabeth Cromwell as the new president and CEO of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce. Cromwell has been the president and CEO of the Frederick County, Maryland Chamber of Commerce since 2014.  

“We were not only seeking a competent leader, but an exceptional one, and Elizabeth checked all of the boxes,” said Pete Caramanis, 2018 chair-elect of the Chamber Board of Directors and co-chair of the executive search committee to find the new Chamber president. “Elizabeth is the strategic thinker and relationship builder that our Chamber desires and our community needs.  She shares our Board’s ambitious vision, and her hiring is a big step toward modernizing our Chamber and making it relevant and important to all members of our business community.”

The search committee members first became acquainted with Cromwell when she brought a contingent of people from Frederick to Charlottesville for the Tom Tom Founders Festival in April, 2018.

“I am honored to be selected to sustain and strengthen the Charlottesville Regional Chamber and thank the Board for its decision.  My background at the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce is directly relevant to the opportunities the Charlottesville Chamber has identified for future success, and I am looking forward to joining Charlottesville’s vibrant business community,” said Cromwell. Cromwell’s start date is October 1, 2018, and she will be relocating to Charlottesville in the interim.

With 30 years of experience in the public and private sectors, Cromwell’s background includes marketing, public relations, corporate partnerships, advocacy and large-scale event management. Cromwell received Frederick Community College’s Business

Leadership Award (2015) and the Maryland Daily Record’s Most Admired CEO Award in 2015 and 2017. In 2016, she accepted an invitation to join the Forbes Nonprofit Council and now occasionally writes columns for .

A nation-wide search for the new Chamber president and CEO, which resulted in more than 100 applicants, was led by Pete Caramanis and Susan Cabell-Mains as co-chairs of the presidential search committee. The committee, diverse in business and background, reached out to Chamber stakeholders and others in the community to seek their feedback on the desired qualifications of future Chamber leadership, and drew on that feedback, as well as standards developed by the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives; the Institute of Organizational Management; the Virginia Chamber and the United States Chamber of Commerce and other sources, to inform the search.

The Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce, founded in 1913, is dedicated to representing private enterprise, promoting business and enhancing the quality of life in the Greater Charlottesville communities. The Chamber’s more than 1,200 member and affiliate member enterprises employ more than 45,000 people in the community, representing an estimated total payroll of more than $1.9 billion a year.