Commerce Lexington Releases 2025 Regional Competitiveness Plan Highlight Video

In today’s rapidly evolving economic landscape, it has become clear that a more unified, strategic approach is essential to keeping our region competitive on a national and global scale. That’s why, alongside regional leaders, Commerce Lexington has led the charge to develop a  bold and forward-thinking roadmap designed to increase more jobs and attract more workers to the nine-county region.

Public and private sector leaders are working together on key initiatives to grow the economy and elevate all communities across the region.

To move the region forward, leaders established clear, measurable goals and action items focused on three pillars: economic development, workforce, and policy.

Early successes include the creation of a regional brand — Greater Lex — and the launch of a new talent attraction website featuring more than 30 pages of “live, work, play” messaging. The site increases awareness among key audiences and offers tools such as an interactive community quiz, regional map, cost of living calculator and detailed county pages to help users discover what makes each area unique.

The region’s first-ever digital and social media talent attraction campaign promotes Central Kentucky as an exceptional place to live and work. The campaign targets alumni of local colleges and universities, as well as recent visitors, aiming to grow both awareness and the talent pool for employers. Digital ads promoting the region’s jobs and quality of life assets direct audiences to lookatlex.com for more information. The initial campaign launched in October 2024 and has since generated 14 million impressions and more than 60,000 unique website visits in year one.
 
Meaningful connections between businesses, students, and higher education leaders are being created through the Synergy Series, an initiative that brings sectors together for collaboration. Additionally, Commerce Lexington has developed an online Resource Hub for employers that houses practical tools to support talent attraction, including a how to guide for online job platforms like Handshake and Indeed.
 
The region’s job attraction website, LocateInLexington.com, has been modernized to better showcase available sites and opportunities. A new digital marketing campaign is positioning the Bluegrass Region as a premier business hub in key industries such as advanced manufacturing, biotech, and professional services. Targeted digital outreach to C-suite executives, site selectors, and entrepreneurs is generating increased business leads and regional visibility.  To highlight the region’s strengths, a new video series launched in 2025 titled “The Nine,” showcasing the competitive advantages, industry successes, and compelling stories about local job opportunities.
 
Commerce Lexington also continues to engage with 125+ national site selectors each year and key industry leaders through strategic outreach and participation in major industry conferences.
 
Education and advocacy remain top priorities. Efforts include economic development education events and policy outreach in both Frankfort and Washington, D.C. The team continues to champion investment in infrastructure, shovel-ready land, housing, and workforce development policies to ensure long-term competitiveness.

Recent examples of effective advocacy include continued investment by the Kentucky General Assembly in the Kentucky Product Development to help accelerate the availability of more job-ready sites in the Greater Lex region and promote regional approaches to product development.
 
In 2025, regional leaders continue to focus on advocacy for policy solutions to help accelerate more housing in the region to address workforce needs. A recent report by the Kentucky Housing Corporation found the 9-county region needs 37,000 housing units to meet current demand. Leaders also continue to work with stakeholders to advocate for investments in a talent attraction marketing campaign for Kentucky and grants to support regional talent attraction efforts.
 
Commerce Lexington continues to host education and leadership events for business and community leaders and local officials to build support for regionalism, including updates on the Regional Plan to key stakeholders, economic development leadership workshops, policy leader engagement events and the annual state of the region, known as The Regional Summit. The events provide important education, insights and resources to help regional leaders continue to build high performing economic development efforts in the region.
 
The Regional Competitiveness Plan is supported financially by both business and government leaders across the region, with a total annual investment of $1.6 million.
 
This collaborative approach has earned national recognition - Commerce Lexington was named Economic Development Organization of the Year in 2025, a testament to the strength of regional partnerships.

There is power in collaboration. We are better together.