Hartford Business Journal

26 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | DECEMBER 13, 2021 FOCUS: Economic Development David Griggs President & CEO MetroHartford Alliance Highest Education: Master's degree in urban planning, University at Buffalo Previous job: Vice President of Business Investment and Research, Greater Minneapolis St. Paul Regional Economic Development Partnership Age: 55 By Greg Bordonaro gbordonaro@hartfordbusiness.com D avid Griggs was hired as CEO of the MetroHartford Alliance in 2018 to be a disrupter. And he's been just that. Since joining the organization, he's implemented a new strategic direction: The Alliance, traditionally viewed as a regional chamber, has become more of a private economic development agency with a primary mission to lure jobs and talent to the region. The restructuring included a new leadership team and beefing up recruiting strategies. The Alliance also spun out its chamber function, bringing back the old Hartford Chamber of Commerce name it hadn't used for nearly two decades. There was also a plan to kick-start an unprecedented level of travel to sell Greater Hartford across the country. However, the pandemic interfered with that, while also creating other challenges in the effort to recruit companies to the region. But Griggs, who came to Hartford from Minneapolis where he was vice president of business investment and research at the Greater Minneapolis St. Paul Regional Economic Development Partnership, said he's bullish on the region's ability to attract investment in the year ahead. He recently participated in a virtual Q&A with the Hartford Business Journal to talk about his accomplishments so far on the job, the Alliance's current recruitment efforts and what will drive economic growth in Greater Hartford in the future. Here's what he had to say: Q: Your time as MetroHartford Alliance CEO certainly got disrupted by the pandemic. What would you say are your major accomplishments so far? Recreating the Hartford Chamber was an important milestone. When I got to Hartford I met with investors, non investors, community leaders and just took it all in, and it really became clear that we needed to reconstitute the chamber to do chamber things, to focus on small businesses and get the chamber activities into the neighborhoods. That's why we rewrote our bylaws and reconstituted the chamber, named Julio Concepcion its executive director and gave it its own board. They are doing things on behalf of the city's small businesses. I'm excited about that. Q: What have you done on the economic development front? We helped create a Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy for our community, and in that plan we were audacious enough to say we wanted to grow our economy and population, which are things the Hartford region hadn't done in a while. (Specifically the plan outlined a five-year goal to increase the region's population by 3% to 4%; grow GDP by at least 5%; and slash by one- third or more, Black and Hispanic poverty, unemployment and income disparities, compared to white and non-Hispanic residents.) Here we sit two years into that plan and we are starting to grow (According to U.S. Census data, Hartford County's population grew by about 1%, or 5,484 residents, over the past decade, although the city of Hartford lost 3% of its population during that time period). We have learned to make a decent lemonade out of what the pandemic has given us. We are finding that the Great Resignation is really a reconfiguring of peoples' priorities, and more people are finding that a place like Hartford really fits in well, that time with family matters, time to With 53 companies in recruitment pipeline, MetroHartford Alliance aims for big 'wins' in 2022 be outdoors matters, great schools matter, and that's a lot of what we have to offer. Q: What's the Alliance's overall economic development strategy right now? We've put a lot of focus on Susan Winkler's work through the CT Insurance and Financial Services (IFS) group, which is part of the MetroHartford Alliance and focuses on growing the insurance and financial services sector. We have rightfully reclaimed the 'insurance capital of the world' title. We are actively promoting Hartford as the insurance capital and we will be announcing new partnerships with other countries in 2022. We are forming unique partnerships with other countries around the world so they recognize Hartford as the place in the United States for insurance. MetroHartford Alliance CEO David Griggs says his organization is trying to attract insurance, financial services, advanced manufacturers and healthcare companies to the region. HBJ FILE PHOTO

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