Speaker Friday, February 7, 2025
Behind Nashville’s meteoric rise lies a network of bold thinkers and passionate community builders. Ralph Schulz is one of those pivotal leaders who helped weave together the strategic vision that has made our city a national success story.
Join us for an engaging morning at the Green Hills Rotary Club meeting on February 7, 2025, at 7:15 AM. We’ll hear from Ralph Schulz, who served as president and CEO of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce from November 2006 until February 2025. While this won’t be a life-altering event, it promises to be an interesting glimpse into how our city has grown and changed.
During his tenure, Schulz led one of Middle Tennessee’s oldest business federations, dating back to 1847. The Chamber played a key role in helping the region emerge from the 2007 recession, developing a business relocation and expansion strategy called Partnership. Under his leadership, the organization achieved notable milestones:
- Consistently recognized as a top economic development agency
- Awarded the Mac Conway Award for Excellence in Economic Development in 2019
- Instrumental in creating the nationally recognized Nashville Entrepreneur Center
- Supported the passage of the Music City Center convention facility
- Led initiatives to improve public school performance through the Academies of Nashville
- Developed the Moving Forward regional transportation initiative
- Established the annual Vital Signs report, providing crucial data about the Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area
In 2009, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce was named “Chamber of the Year” by the American Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE), recognizing the Nashville Chamber’s organizational excellence, service to members, development of leaders and volunteers and its impact on key community priorities. The ACCE award referenced the Nashville Chamber’s role in the creation of Nashville for All of Us, a campaign made up of community leaders aligned to defeat a 2009 charter referendum
This is a great opportunity to hear an insider’s perspective on Nashville’s recent history. Come network with fellow Rotary members, enjoy a morning of interesting conversation, and gain some insights into our community’s recent past.
We look forward to seeing you there.
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Recent and Future Speakers
| 4/10/26 | Steve Bland, CEO WEGO Public Transit | ||
| 4/17/26 | William Jeffries, Executive Director, African American Music Museum | ||
| 4/24/26 | Eric, Editor in Chief, Nashville Business Journal | ||
| 5/1/26 | Jim Easter, Healthcare trends in 2026 | ||
| 5/8/26 | Yuri Cunza, CEO Nashville Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce | ||
| 5/15/26 | Christiane Buggs, Bob Kucher, of PENCIL CEO | ||
| 5/22/26 | District Governor, John Christopher Williams | ||
| 5/29/26 | Laurel Creech and Casey Davis, The Nature Conservancy in Tennessee | ||
| 6/5/26 | Nashville Opera, Keri Alkema, Chief Strategy & Ops Officer |