Steve Millard is President and CEO of the Greater Akron Chamber. Steve was attracted to the Chamber in 2018 to become a part of an emerging new collaboration among economic development partners led by the County of Summit, the City of Akron, the GAR Foundation, and the Chamber’s Board leadership. The promise of an enterprise approach across disparate ecosystem partners to increase jobs, investment and opportunity for the region was a bold idea for the region and the business community that he wanted to be involved in creating.
That bold idea became the unique collaboration that is working to advance economic development in Greater Akron called Elevate Greater Akron. The commitment by more than 20 ecosystem partners working together to do the right things to drive growth and success for the region has allowed for stronger collaboration and impact for the region.
Prior to joining the Chamber in 2018, Steve spent more than 20 years leading in various roles in economic development including as the President and Executive Director of the Council of Smaller Enterprises (COSE) and the Executive Vice President of the Greater Cleveland Partnership.
Professionally, Steve is a Certified Chamber Executive and has been recognized in a variety of ways for community leadership, Board service and professional contributions. Steve holds a B.S. in Finance, a B.S. in Transportation and Distribution Management from Syracuse University, and an M.B.A. from Case Western Reserve University. Prior to his work in Economic Development, he spent time at both GE Medical Systems (now GE Health Care) and Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) in supply chain operations and strategy consulting roles.
Steve currently serves on several boards including Leadership Akron, Summit Education Initiative, TeamNEO, ConxusNEO, Business Volunteers Unlimited, Downtown Akron Partnership, Downtown Akron Development Corporation and Medical Service Company.
Steve and his wife, Lisa, are proud to have a daughter, Lexie, who is a high school English teacher and a son, Ben, currently attending Marietta College. They live as the guests of three cats and two dogs who go out of their way to be perfectly good at doing absolutely nothing. Steve has no impressive hobbies or world adventures to brag about, but does have some bad habits like good bourbon, great scotch, and an occasional cigar that he is happy to share.