I’ve been active in our Birmingham business community most of my adult life and I’ve never seen Jeff Bezos, the third richest man in the world, and the founder of Amazon.
Since returning to Birmingham full time in late 2017, I have made a conscious effort to integrate myself into the day-to-day life of my hometown.
I joined the boards of three companies and four non-profits, worked closely with the finance department at City Hall, joined Birmingham-Southern College as an adjunct professor, and then, a year later became its 16th president. Continue reading Birmingham’s colonial economy→
On our first date – January 1995 in Chicago – Brooke and I talked about Birmingham.
Although we had both believed we had to leave our shared hometown to start our lives – Smith and graduate school at the University of Chicago for her, Yale and the MBA program at the University of Chicago for me – we also both knew we would move home someday. Continue reading Man wakes from 35-year cryogenic freeze to find a new Birmingham→
Having lived all over the country I moved back to Birmingham 24 years ago—first to Homewood and then Mountain Brook.
For much of that time, even though I worked within the city limits of Birmingham and paid the occupational tax, I had very little interest in Birmingham itself.
Twelve years ago, a small group of Birmingham business leaders decided to scrap the 122 year old Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce and create a hybrid organization called the Birmingham Business Alliance (BBA). Continue reading Ouch! Birmingham has no Chamber of Commerce→
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Shipt is one of Birmingham’s great start-up success stories. The company went from a few employees to a $550 million acquisition in less than five years.
The big question is, ‘How can Birmingham replicate that success?’
When I was a young business person four major banks were headquartered in Birmingham: First National Bank, Birmingham Trust National Bank, Exchange Security Bank, and Central Bank. These banks eventually morphed into AmSouth, SouthTrust, Regions, and Compass.