‍Nashville; Boston (June 5, 2019) Ten government, business, and nonprofit leaders from Middle Tennessee have been chosen by Global Action Platform for a Harvard Business School leadership program convening representatives from fourteen American cities who are working across sectors to help their communities prosper.

Dr.Scott T. Massey, Chairman and CEO, Global Action Platform, and Mitch Weiss,Co-Director of the Young American Leaders Program and Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurial Management, Harvard Business School announced the 2019 Class of Nashville Young American Leaders today at a Leadership Reunion and 2019 class induction held at Harth Restaurant, Green Hills Hilton.  Global Action Platform is the local partner and coordinator of the Young American Leaders Program for Nashville and the regional affiliate of the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, Harvard Business School.

The ten Nashville leaders selected to participate in the leadership program at Harvard this June are

1.      Harry Allen, Chief Relationship Officer, Studio Bank

2.      Malika Anderson, Chief of Organizational Development, Instruction Partners

3.      Beth Seigenthaler Courtney, Managing Partner,Southeast, Finn Partners

4.      Joe Flynn, AVP, Community Engagement, HCA;President, HCA Hope Foundation

5.      Andrew Goldner, Founding Partner, GrowthX

6.      Nathan Green, Vice Chancellor for Government and Community Relations, Vanderbilt University

7.      Tony Niknejad, Policy Director, Office of the Governor,State of Tennessee

8.      Lisa Purcell, Vice President of Development,Education, and Community Outreach, Country Music Hall of Fame ® and Museum

9.      Joyce Searcy, Director of Community Relations,Belmont University

10.   Martha Silva, Senior Director of Economic Integration, Conexion Americas

The Young American Leaders Program grows out of a deep concern and a great hope shared by Global Action Platform and the Harvard Business School’s ongoing project on U.S. competitiveness. The concern is that the local, shared resources which drive American prosperity are not keeping pace with global standards. U.S.workforce skills, schools, and infrastructure, for instance, are not improving fast enough or, in too many cases, are deteriorating. As a result, an unsustainable divergence has gripped the U.S. economy: working- and middle-class Americans are struggling, even as firms and individuals who can tap global opportunities are thriving. Prosperity is being generated but not shared.

Our hope springs from the local level. In cities and regions across the country, we see local policymakers, business people, nonprofit leaders, educators, clergy,and others coming together across sectors to build skills, improve schools,restore infrastructure to build a foundation for economic growth and shared prosperity.

Ten leaders from fourteen cities across the U.S. are selected by senior community leaders in those cities to go to Harvard each June for an intensive case study workshop on urban and rural regional collaborations and strategies for economic resilience.  Other participating cities include Boston, Columbus, Detroit, Miami,Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Salt Lake City, and Seattle, among others.  The program was launched to develop leaders who understand cross-sector collaborations for shared prosperity and can implement them more effectively and spread them more rapidly than in the past.

“Global Action Platform is committed to advancing local innovation cluster economic growth for shared prosperity,” notes Dr. Massey.  “We are pleased to be the regional affiliate of Porter’s Institute at Harvard and to be working with them on the Young American Leaders Program and other projects.  Through this collaboration, we hope to help enable emerging and established local leaders to work together for the shared growth and prosperity of our region in today’s global economy.”  Lipscomb University’s Linda Peek Schacht, and Alexander Assouad, Assistant Professor of Management and International Business, Belmont University help advise the group, which receives ongoing local program support from Global Action Platform.

Nashville leaders who have participated in the Young American Leaders Program in the previous years include (titles based on currently available information from the internet, which may be subject to more recent changes):

2015

Jon Ayers,Executive Vice President, Ayers Asset Management

Landon Gibbs,Managing Partner, Altitude Ventures

Caleb Graves,Director of Business Development, Staffing as a Mission, LLC

Penny Judd,President, PenAvenue Strategies

StaceyLevine, Regional Director, The Governor’s Foundation for Health and Wellness

ShakaMitchell, Tennessee Director, American Federation for Children

Laura Moore,Senior Advisor, Education, Office of the Mayor, Metro Nashville

Gabe Roberts,Director, TennCare

Melissa Waddey,President, Ambulatory and Operations Group, LifePoint Health

MarcusWhitney, Founding President, Jumpstart Foundry

2016

Agenia Clark,President, Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee

Lucia Folk,Vice President for Public Affairs, CMT

Clay Jackson,Jr., General Manager, Sonder, Inc

John Lowry,Vice President for Development and External Affairs, Lipscomb University

LonnellMatthews, Davidson County Clerk, Davidson County Juvenile Court

Mendy Mazzo, CorporateSenior Vice President, National Business Development Skanska

Tim Ozgener,President and CEO, Oz Arts

Renata Soto,President (Retiring), Conexion Americas

Mario Avila,Director, Turner Center for Social Ventures, Owen Graduate School of Business,Vanderbilt University

LesleeAlexander, Immediate Past Director of International Programs, TennesseeDepartment of Economic and Community Development

2017

Jeff Albee,Principal, Innovation and Technology, Stantec

Samar Ali,International Counsel, Bass, Berry & Sims

Kate Chinn,Vice President and Head of Community Relations, AllianceBernstein

LesiaCrumpton-Young, Vice President of Research and Institutional Advancement,Tennessee State University

Ryan Doyle,General Manager, oneC1TY, Cambridge Holdings

Hank Ingram,Financial Analyst, Ingram Industries

Joelle Phillips,President, AT&T Tennessee

Jay Turner,Managing Director, Marketstreet Enterprises

CarolineRandall Williams, Author, Poet, and Academic

D. J.Wootson, Principal, Titus Young

2018

MonicaClayton Fawknotson, Executive Director, Nashville Sports Authority

Dr. AlexJahangir, Medical Director, Vanderbilt Center for Trauma, Burn, and EmergencySurgery

PeterThompson, Vice President Wealth Management, Regions Bank

David Hanson,Managing Partner, Hillgreen

ElizabethMcAlister, Owner, Speak Spanish Nashville

WendyThompson, Vice Chancellor for Organizational Effectiveness, Tennessee Board ofRegents

Henry Hicks, CEO,National Museum of African American Music

KarenThompson, Vice President, Strategy and Innovation, HCA

AndresMartinez, Director of Communications, Conexion Americas

LauraBerlind, President, Sycamore Institute

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