from staff
Banker Kelly Madden chairs the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce this year. She is wholesale market president for North Florida for Wells Fargo, which bought Wachovia Corp., where she was area market president. Madden served as the chamber’s Cornerstone economic development chair in 2008 and also was the 2008 chair of the Gator Bowl Association. Also a member of the private Jacksonville Civic Council executive leadership group, Madden met Wednesday with the editorial staff of the Daily Record.
What is the chamber’s top priority this year?
Economic development. It really is job retention and creation. The biggest concern to a T is the economy.
Is the chamber working on any large projects?
There are a lot of opportunities we’re researching. I can’t comment on the status. It is certainly more challenging than it was in the past.
What are the toughest selling points of Jacksonville?
If you get people who haven’t been here in a while, they think we still have tolls, they think we still have paper mills, they think we are South Georgia. So a lot of times when I’m asked to help recruit a company to Jacksonville, it’s overcoming some of that basic lack of knowledge. You hear many people say this, but I think us getting an NFL team dramatically changed how people view Jacksonville. All of a sudden they knew we were worthy of an NFL team. I think we still have issues with our education system. If you dig a little deeper, I think we still have a lot of inequities around race and I think we have to continually focus on that from an income level, support services, quality of life. It’s not a simple solution or someone would have already fixed it.
How is the chamber’s membership level faring in the recession?
Last year we were around 3,800 members. This year we are at 3,500. Seventy percent of the members are small businesses, the meat and potatoes of what we do. We have to demonstrate that you will be more successful in your business if you join the chamber.
The Board of Governors is launching three working groups.
Economic development, structured around downtown revitalization, keeping the Jaguars here and job retention and growth.
Public policy, with Amendment 4, taxation and fairness, pension plan reform, and Jax
Biz (the chamber’s a political endorsement group) will vet the candidates.
And member value, for small business, medium size and large. We’ve had a lot of small businesses go out of business. We’re also worried about members who decreased their membership.
The chamber also cut staff and restructured some functions. Is the chamber done with that?
I don’t know that any organization is ‘done.’ With staff, we pulled in, tried to do more with less and reinvent ourselves. We’ve had to make some changes in benefits.
As incoming chamber chair last year, you led the annual leadership trip to visit another city. You chose Kansas City. What’s the feedback?
It’s really great. On the way back, in our very last session and the plane ride home, I asked people while it was still fresh to write down ideas on napkins, pieces of paper, whatever they had. Pages and pages from 98 participants about what they liked, what they didn’t, what they were concerned about and anything else that could help our community. We filtered it and came up with these 11 buckets. A lot of it was tied to Downtown revitalization, but at its core it was about political and community leadership and having a vision to execute. That was a big learning opportunity for folks.
While there, did you have any idea about the almost 30 schools that are to close?
People have asked me that and I’m telling you, one of the main reasons we didn’t have a big chunk of education on the agenda is because, pardon my language, they were more screwed up than we were. And so, there wasn’t a lot to learn from the Kansas City school district. We’re in much better shape and I think sometimes we don’t tell the positives about our school system when things are going well.
What’s the last year been like for you?
Even though it was difficult, 2009 was more pleasant than 2008. If you think back, the wheels were coming off the industry, you had the failure of several institutions within the financial services environment. Toward the end of 2008, people were worried about liquidity, they were worried about where their assets were in the cycle. Just a lot of confusion. Wachovia was being sought after by both Citi and Wells Fargo. By the end of 2008, we knew we were getting married to Wells Fargo. I’m not going to lie to you, I would have preferred to remain independent, but if you’ve got to get married to a partner, Wells Fargo is an awfully good partner. Their company is a mirror image of us on the West Coast and very similar to ours. They’ll learn a lot from us and we’ll learn a lot from them and so far I couldn’t be more pleased.
How did you get into banking? Did you ever imagine you would get where you are today in the industry?
Straight out of college I got into the corporate culture at First Union (which merged with Wachovia). Like most young people, I didn’t think about it. I went to work every day to do the best job I could do. That’s really how I was raised. I had a lot of great mentors along the way, people who thought a lot of my skill sets and helped me stretch my abilities.
When did it dawn on you that you were going to move up the corporate ladder?
I didn’t approach it from that perspective. Every new role was a chance to improve my skill set and allowed me to progress my career. It was done out-of-the-box.
In your career so far, how has the industry changed for the better and the worse?
I joined the company in the ‘80s and it’s been a very interesting series of cycles. If you think about the economy, there’s a cycle probably every 10 years and this is very different than ones in the past. We’ve seen companies expand and contract, and Florida in particular is very heavy in real estate. A lot of our growth, if you think about the amount of people who have moved to Florida every year, has been pretty consistent. For the last 20 years, it’s been pretty consistent, but this last year is the first we had a net loss. In general, the economy was very strong in Florida when I started and it probably will be when I finish my career, but it’s one of those states where you’ve got high growth and when it falls off, it falls hard.
Any reason for optimism?
I’m optimistic about everything. I have a 15-year-old and a 10-year-old and it’d be depressing if I weren’t. I think as a community, we have a lot of great resources in terms of talent, great companies here, great civic leadership and I think we’re poised for a recovery. Hopefully, we’re at the bottom and I’m starting to see signs of life as we go forward. I think it’s going to be a slow recovery and for those who want to wake up tomorrow and have it be over, I think they’re going to be disappointed. A slow and methodical recovery is under way.
It could be argued that no other woman in Jacksonville has chaired as many prominent organizations as you. Did you plan that?
I don’t think of it in those terms. My dad was ex-military and my mom was a school teacher. I didn’t grow up in life thinking of male and female. I thought about my skills. Fortunately, I work for a company that values that. I think most leaders are elected to positions in the community because of their experience.
Are you enjoying your year as Chamber chair?
I am. It’s very busy. My day job is full-time and I am involved in many chamber groups. I have also been invited to join the Teach for America board.
Like your chamber predecessor (Mike Hightower), you have a very busy full-time job. How do you juggle everything?
I have an incredible husband and a very good home life that allows me to be flexible and they (husband and children) support me. It works like a well-oiled machine. He’s a CPA, so this is his busy season. All three of them are great people. They understand why I do what I do. With my community things, I am away at night at lot. At times, it’s very hard. This past Monday I was at a function until 9 and Tuesday night I didn’t get home until about 8:45. Most mornings I leave the house about 5:45. It requires a balance.
How do you get away from it all?
I like anything outside, so toward the fall and the beginning of the year I am sporting clays or hunting. Later in the year it’s usually hiking and we’ve got trips planned out to the beach. Really almost anything outside.
How did you end up in Jacksonville?
The First Union training program was here.
Why did you stay?
The community. I left once for the bank and went to Tampa for two years in a management role. I loved the job and loved the people, but we quickly learned that people in Jacksonville look you in the eye when you walk by and say hello.
We developed a network of friends we knew were special, but we did not know how special until we moved to Tampa, which is a separated and divided community as opposed to here.
What I do for a living, by definition, is about relationships. There are clients in our portfolio that I brought in 20 years ago. We have to be there for them and they are loyal to us because of our relationship. This is a small big city and it’s wonderful.
What’s your take on the hot topic of the day, health-care reform?
The short answer is, I don’t know. It scares the heck out of me. It scares the heck out of me for what it will mean for businesses that are trying to afford some of the changes. It scares the heck out of me for what my children are already paying for the foreseeable future. Clearly we need access to health care for people who don’t have it and can’t afford it. Using the ER as a primary physician is not the right answer. I don’t think any of us knows what is in it yet.