Regional Leaders Convene for Full-day Event Aimed at Elevating the Region's Competitiveness

​Nearly 300 leaders from across the Greater Lexington region gathered for Commerce Lexington’s 2024 Regional Summit presented by Community Trust Bank on November 20th.  During the full-day event, business, community, education and government leaders heard from nationally recognized experts in economic development, talent attraction and public policy about issues impacting the Bluegrass Region’s competitiveness for jobs and talent.  

Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton welcomes Summit attendees. (Photo by Mahan Multimedia)

The agenda included the annual “state of the region” update from Ted Abernathy with Economic Leadership.  In his update, Abernathy highlighted the 9-county region’s continued improvement in job creation across sectors and its challenge with limited workforce growth to support business needs. 
 
National and local experts in talent attraction marketing unveiled the new Greater LEX talent marketing campaign, which includes a new website (www.lookatlex.com) and the first phase of a digital marketing campaign. The target audience of this campaign is alumni of regional colleges and universities and recent or prospective tourists to the area. In the first 30 days, the campaign generated more than 830,000 impressions and 5,212 new website users. Campaign messaging revolves around exceptional quality of life, specifically living and working in the region.  

​Leaders from the Raleigh, North Carolina region profiled the evolution of regionalism efforts to support the 14-county Research Triangle Regional Partnership and improve the economy for both urban and rural communities. 
 
Governor Andy Beshear, Senate Appropriations and Revenue Chairman Chris McDaniel, and House Appropriations Vice Chairman Josh Bray also discussed policy changes and budget investments impacting Kentucky’s business climate, and recent economic successes.  

Jeff Bischoff with Gray Construction and nationally renowned site selector, Didi Caldwell with Global Location Strategies, participated in a live DevelopLex podcast recording. The conversation revolved around insights on global trends in economic development, the site selection process, and the opportunities on the horizon for foreign direct investment opportunities. Caldwell emphasized what makes a region competitive for jobs in today’s landscape, which is having job ready land for businesses seeking relocation or expansion.   ​

Ted Abernathy, Chris Johnson, Steve Byars - Profile on Regionalism with Greater Raleigh Leaders. (Photo by Mahan Multimedia)

Kentucky Governor, Andy Beshear highlights Kentucky’s Advantages for Job Creation and Workforce Attraction. (Photo by Mahan Multimedia)

Participants also engaged in breakout sessions focused on the power of partnerships, featuring the University of Kentucky’s role as an innovation driver for economic development, housing affordability solutions for the region, and higher education collaborations to support workforce needs.
 
One of the goals of the 2024 Regional Summit is to provide leaders in Greater LEX with updates on goals outlined in the Regional Competitiveness Plan.  Since 2021, business, education and government across the nine-county region have been working together on the first-ever Regional Competitiveness Plan, a strategy aimed at making the region more economically competitive for jobs and talent.  Although the region boasts exceptional quality of life strengths, we’re facing key challenges that are slowing economic momentum, such as attracting more high-paying jobs, increasing the skilled workers to meet industry needs, creating more build-ready sites for business, addressing housing affordability, and elevating awareness of the region as a place to live and work.  

Commerce Lexington is working with regional leaders to implement seven key action items across economic development, talent attraction, and policy advocacy with the key goals of increasing jobs, median wages and GDP within the region to at least the national average by 2027.  
 
Great progress was made in 2024 on the competitiveness plan. Watch the video below for a recap: 

The Regional Competitiveness Plan is financially supported by business and government leaders across the region with a total annual investment of $1.6 million. The nine-county Greater LEX region includes Bourbon, Clark, Fayette, Franklin, Jessamine, Madison, Montgomery, Scott and Woodford counties.

​Regionalism is an absolute necessity when competing for jobs and talent. From business sites to housing inventory to quality of life, each community in the region has unique attributes, and that strengthens the region as a great place to live and work.

We are better together. 
 
More Information:

• To view the full Regional Summit Agenda, visit Regional Summit Agenda - Commerce Lexington Inc.
• For more information on the Regional Competitiveness Plan, view the 2024 Recap Video, or visit on-line at www.commercelexington.com/regionalplan.html.
• For more information on the Greater Lex talent attraction campaign, visit lookatlex.com, and check out the resource hub for additional information.