Commerce Lexington's annual Leadership Visit has helped expose Central Kentucky's leaders to the best ideas of model communities throughout the United States, yielding valuable lessons that have been applied to the improvement of the Bluegrass Region. This three-day trip has become the most valuable opportunity to bring community leaders, decision makers and ideas together in order to make positive changes in our community. It's a very unique program that includes the foremost business, education, government and community representatives of Central Kentucky.

175 Bluegrass Leaders Visited Kansas City, May 13-15
On May 13-15, 2015, Commerce Lexington Inc. and many of its key community leaders and business professionals embarked on the organization’s annual Leadership Visit presented by McBrayer, McGinnis, Leslie & Kirkland, PLLC.  About 175 people participated in this year’s trip to Kansas City, Missouri, to study the city’s successes and challenges in the hopes of further enhancing the Bluegrass Region.

KANSAS CITY DECONSTRUCTED WRAP-UP REPORT (.pdf)

The Bluegrass delegation’s opening day in Kansas City took place at the Kauffman Foundation Conference Center with welcome remarks by Kansas City Chamber President Jim Heeter, as well as morning sessions led by Union Station CEO George Guastello and Marita Wesely of Hallmark Cards.

Day two in Kansas City featured panel discussions on The Big 5, regionalism, and diversity, with afternoon elective sessions available for participants to experience the Kansas City Royals’ Kauffman Stadium, the Power & Light District, local arts and philanthropy efforts, and an urban neighborhood revitalization area. In addition, Lexington emerging leaders met with some of Kansas City’s young professionals over lunch.

A large portion of Friday morning’s sessions focused on getting the participants to reflect on the content that Kansas City leaders presented, paying special attention to the processes used to reach their goals and drawing parallels to how they could apply to projects or initiatives in Lexington.  Closing out the trip was Kansas City Mayor Sly James.

Kansas City Briefing Book Materials (.PDFs):
WELCOME INFO
AGENDA
SPEAKER BIOS
SPONSORS
KC DISCOVERED
ATTENDEES (AS OF MAY 8, 2015)

Kansas City Videos:

PLATINUM SPONSORS
Central Bank & Trust Co.
CHASE/J.P. Morgan
Kentucky Community & Technical College System
Kentucky Utilities Company.
Unified Trust Company, N.A.
Your Community Bank

OPENING NIGHT RECEPTION SPONSOR
Saint Joseph Hospital part of Kentucky One Health

SILVER SPONSOR
Crowe Horwath LLP
Stites & Harbison, PLLC

BRIEFING BOOK SPONSOR
J.J.B. Hilliard, W. L. Lyons, LLC

NAMETAG SPONSOR
Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs, LLP

RUN/WALK SPONSOR
Humana