WINONA LAKE - Vanessa Green Sinders isn’t an Indiana native, but in her short time serving as the president and CEO of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, she’s not only embraced the Hoosier state as if she was but found the state to be very welcoming.
“I grew up on the East Coast. People on the East Coast, they really don’t want to talk to you unless they need something from you or they’re too busy running down the street to do something. And I still remember when we moved here, we’re living in Indianapolis, I was floored by how welcoming and nice everybody was and just wanted to introduce us to the neighborhood, help us out with schools for our kids. And I have found both personally and professionally as I have taken on this role at the state chamber, just the welcoming, collaborative team approach that the state takes is really unique and I think it’s something to be celebrated,” she said.
Sinders offered her insight Thursday night when she sat down with Lake City Bank Chairman and CEO David Findlay for a “fireside chat” at the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce’s 113th Annual Awards Dinner at the Manahan Orthopaedic Capital Center in Winona Lake.
The first question Findlay posed to Sinders was about the relationship between the Indiana Chamber and all of the community chambers like Kosciusko’s.
“First of all, the relationship is really important. When I started a little more than a year ago, one of the first things I said was that I wanted to get to know all the local chambers,” she said. “The state chamber is a separate organization from the local chambers, but I believe to my core that the way that we make Indiana stronger and the way that we best advocate for business and employer interest is by collaborating and working together. And that means all of us in the business community need to work together, and we as the state chamber need to do our part to support our local partners. And we are so happy to do it.”
Findlay asked what do the local chambers want more of from the state chamber.
“Honestly, I think that it’s the communication and the feedback and the opportunity to work together,” she replied. “As I said, I am not a native Hoosier, I arrived in Indiana 2-1/2 years ago. I grew up in a small town outside of Boston. I spent a year in Chicago after I graduated from college. Twenty years in Washington, D.C.”
Her husband is the native Hoosier and they have two boys together.
While the transition to Indiana has been great, Sinders said one of the things that she knew when she started her job at the Indiana Chamber was she wanted to get out and about in the state.
“The Indiana Chamber is the state’s largest broad-based business advocacy organization, and the only way that we’re going to know and be able to advocate and celebrate all the wins across the state is by being there. So when I travel around the state, what I hear is just the emphasis and recognition that that communication and coordination and us traveling to different parts of the state and hearing from all of you ... is what’s important,” she stated.
With Mike Braun serving as Indiana’s new governor, replacing Eric Holcomb who could not seek re-election due to term limits, and this being a budget year down at the state legislature, Findlay asked Sinders what the state chamber was focused on for the benefit of all businesses in the state.
The state chamber has been around for over 100 years. Sinders said, “We have a history of putting out economic vision plans for the state, every 10 years or so, and the most recent one we termed ‘Indiana Prosperity 2035.’ That came out right as I started at the end of ’23. And this is our attempt to take stakeholder feedback from across the state on the issues that really matter to the state that we need to address from now for the next 10 years, and put them on a piece of paper, identify some rules and metrics, and then figure out how we’re going to accomplish them.”
In that plan, she said the state chamber identified six areas: workforce, education, economic growth and innovation, infrastructure, quality of place and healthy communities and families.
“So, obviously, there is a lot in all of those priorities, and probably some of those priorities - different ones are more important to different regions throughout the state - but we use that economic vision plan and those pillars to really guide everything we do at the chamber, and it’s where we then derive our policy priorities, along with the work that we do with our policy committees, similar to all of you,” Sinders stated.
For this legislative session, she said the chamber did a survey of its members, asking them which one of those pillars they felt most passionate about that the chamber needed to focus on. Economic growth and innovation came out at the top, with workforce in the second spot.
“So, again, I think for us that means that the conversation around taxes is something that we are actively involved in,” she said, making sure that businesses’ interests are well-represented.
“And then from the innovation perspective, there’s a lot of exciting discussions around how do we support entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship more as the way to kind of ensure more growth in the state. And we are supporting efforts to create an Office of Entrepreneurship. The state hasn’t had one,” she said.
The office would be a one-stop shop for resources for people who want to start a business. Sinders said they think there’s a lot of support for the office with state officials down in Indianapolis.
“From a workforce perspective, there’s a lot there. I think for us, the reskilling, upskilling, training our workforce is really big and something that we’re focused on this session,” she said.
On infrastructure, Sinders pointed out that road funding is up for discussion during this budget session and the chamber will be actively engaged there.
Those were just a few things at the top of the state chamber’s priority list during this legislative session, she stated.
Asked by Findlay if she understood the importance of U.S. 30 and what is trying to be accomplished with it, Sinders said yes.
On issues like infrastructure, housing, child care and more, she said hopefully the state chamber can bring voices together to make sure elected officials know that the business community is speaking with one voice.
“I have really focused on having myself and our team be around the state as much as possible and connect with our local chamber partners and our member companies throughout the state. We are a statewide organization, and we need to be interacting that way,” she said later when asked about significant changes she’s made during her 13 months at the state chamber. “And to me, the feedback that I have gotten is that that has been really well received and is something that I think is going to make us stronger as a business community here in the state going forward.”