Ron Kitchens came to St. Louis Inc. with a simple mandate: “more and better jobs.” “Nothing great,” he says, “will happen in the community, and in the region, without more and better jobs.”
As the new CEO of Greater St. Louis Inc. explains on The 314 Podcast, he sees his organization as the “pathfinder” and “problem solver” enabling companies to come to St. Louis—and grow here. “We don’t create the jobs,” he says. “We have to facilitate people coming together for solutions around barriers to success.”
Get a fresh take on the day’s top news
Subscribe to the St. Louis Daily newsletter for a smart, succinct guide to local news from award-winning journalists Sarah Fenske and Ryan Krull.
That’s meant changes. Kitchens has initiated new titles for everyone on staff; instead of “president” or “vice president,” employees are now “partners” or “directors.” “We want to look like a consulting firm,” he says. He’s also reorganized some staff and is focused on holding people accountable to new metrics. A new scoreboard in the Greater St. Louis Inc. offices will show staffers how they’re doing on one-year, three-year and five-year goals.
Around the time of Kitchens’ arrival, Greater St. Louis Inc.’s chief downtown officer, Kurt Weigle, suggested to the St. Louis Business Journal that his goal was a better feeling downtown, not “self-limiting” numerical goals. Weeks later, the Business Journal reported Weigle would be resigning to be closer to his family. (At the time, Greater St. Louis Inc. issued a statement saying the departure was Weigle’s decision and they wished him the best.)
Kitchens said the interview had nothing to do with Weigle’s departure. But he agreed that it represented “a different philosophy.”
“Vibe matters,” he acknowledged. “But metrics matter. You have to create those metrics so people know when they’re winning. You also have to create those metrics so people know you’re a good steward of their resources.” The focus on metrics, he suggests, is a sea change for Greater St. Louis Inc.
Why It Matters: Founding CEO, Jason Hall, helped create Greater St. Louis Inc. by merging business organizations including Civic Progress, Downtown STL, Inc., and the St. Louis Regional Chamber in hopes of advancing a regional economic growth strategy. When Hall decamped for Columbus, it took 10 months to find a replacement. Now Kitchens, who has a long history leading business organizations in smaller cities, will have to show that he can steer the organization Hall created to new heights.
In his first two months, Kitchens says he conducted 100-plus one-on-one meetings with stakeholders, on top of large group meetings, getting feedback on what Greater St. Louis Inc. is doing well and what it should do differently. (Of those 100-plus one-on-ones, he says, only two were negative. “One of them just needed to unload,” he says, “and that’s OK.”)
What’s Next: A major focus for Hall had been persuading the St. Louis Board of Aldermen to earmark $100 million of Rams settlement funds for downtown. While Hall enlisted then-Alderwoman Cara Spencer, among others, to his plan, a climactic meeting at the Board of Aldermen blew up any semblance of a deal; then a tornado ripped through town.
That cataclysmic event, Kitchen says, has changed the organization’s thinking. “You have people in crisis,” he says. “We have to take care of humans first.”
That said, he’s still pitching city leaders on the need for $75 million for downtown, a number that includes $5 million to seed a fund to help the St. Louis Sports Commission lure more events downtown. (More on the idea for that fund here.) He believes, despite the enormous need laid bare by the tornado, the region must keep longer term goals in mind.
“We can’t eat our seed corn,” he says. “If we spend it all on an immediate crisis and we don’t invest in the long term, we’re not going to have the money the next time a crisis comes. So we’ve got to do both. And we’ve really got to look at pairing charitable dollars and governmental dollars together—the Rams settlement money—together to thrive.”
Have city leaders been receptive? He says the discussions have been a “negotiation,” adding, “I think in the end, we’ll come up with a consensus.”
Watch or listen to the full interview with Kitchens on The 314 Podcast.
