by Mark McDermott
Jill Lamkin was appointed president and CEO of the Manhattan Beach Chamber of Commerce last month. But her trajectory towards that position occurred in a series of “aha moments” that in retrospect make her ascension to the Chamber’s chief leadership role seem almost inevitable.
If one were to try to perfectly season someone to become MB Chamber CEO, it might look something like this: get a little corporate experience, in order to better understand the broader business world; run a small business in Manhattan Beach, in order to better understand this very specific economic terrain; take some time off that isn’t really time off, which is to say stay at home in order to raise children, thus immersing yourself in the heart and soul of what Manhattan Beach is, a community built upon the raising of families; get involved, as a PTA leader and an educational foundation board member, in order to get to know more people around the unifying cause of excellent education; come back to the business world as the executive director of the Downtown Manhattan Beach Business and Professional Association, a small but highly influential local organization that promotes and protects the “mom and pop” character of business district. Throw in a global pandemic that makes that organization a key player in saving those businesses, and you have, in part, the preparation that Jill Lamkin experienced before taking the helm of the MB Chamber.
Additionally, Lamkin sat on the Chamber’s board of directors. David Curry, the chair of the MB chamber board, recalled that when Lamkin took a seat on the board last summer, she arrived with a reputation for extraordinary attention to detail, level-head competence, and as someone who asks a lot of good questions.
“I was the incoming chairman of the board, and having known Jill, and seeing what she has done in the community, I figured we’d have to raise our game to keep up with her,” Curry said. “No joke. It was a little intimidating to keep up with her great ideas and her expectation of excellence and performance.”
Meanwhile, Lamkin was running into walls in her role at the helm of the Downtown Business Association. She became involved with several regional efforts, through the LA Chamber of Commerce and the LA County Business Federation (for whom she co-chaired a small business advocacy committee) and kept encountering limitations.
“You are exposed to these bigger ideas and bigger plans,” she said. “I came back from these meetings thinking, ‘Why aren’t we applying any of that here?’ What else could we be doing?”
Because the FIFA World Cup 2026 and the 2028 Olympics are coming to Los Angeles, a lot of regional preparation is underway, particularly since the goal is for a zero-car Olympics and the transportational planning that will have to take place to reach that goal. Lamkin, both as executive director of the downtown association and through her involvement (alongside Chevron’s Jessica Vincent) with the LA Chamber, traveled for meetings in Washington D.C., in part to investigate all the grant opportunities for communities to offer transit options for the incoming flux of visitors. At one meeting with the Department of Transportation, the discussion was how to more easily link the nearest train station, in Redondo, with Manhattan Beach.
“Well, who do you represent?” the official asked Lamkin.
“I represent the downtown businesses,” Lamkin replied.
“Well, we need somebody who represents the whole city,” the official said. “Because we’ve got to work with the city government.”
That moment stuck with Lamkin.
“I kept getting these aha moments where I thought, ‘Okay, I know that the downtown is kind of the heart of the community, but in terms of supporting all of the businesses in the community, I’d like to do that,” Lamkin said. “And so that’s sort of where it all started. I was realizing all the opportunities that are out there, and we really need to have a more coordinated effort of what we’re doing for the collective business unit.”
What she had begun to recognize was a lack of cohesion. The Chamber was good at networking and support, and each area of town had its own business organizations working towards their own ends. But nothing brought them together.
“It seemed to be very siloed,” Lamkin said. “You’ve got North Manhattan, doing their thing, downtown doing their thing, and then the Chamber sort of supporting versus promoting as much. And with all these big events that are coming up, people are coming. They’re coming whether we’re going to be prepared or not. And so we really just need to get our organizational plan and our business plan put together, so that when they come, we’re maximizing that opportunity for everybody here.”
Lamkin is a famous asker of questions. She has the heart of an investigator, which means she’s comfortable both with uncomfortable questions, and those which don’t have easy answers. She started asking such questions, particularly about lack of business development planning and regional cooperation, from her seat on the MB Chamber board. After the departure of David Archer, the Chamber’s previous CEO, the board had an aha moment of its own.
“I just kind of kept asking questions, and finally, a couple members of the board said, ‘You know, this position is available, and you keep asking these questions,’” she recalled.
Suddenly it clicked. Lamkin presented her vision for what the Chamber could be, and the board responded by making her president and CEO.
“The board is excited about the growth and evolution of the Chamber’s mission,” Curry said. “We’ve always been a community organization that has provided networking opportunities for small and large businesses, legislative advocacy, and community events like the Best of Manhattan awards. What it’s lacked, and what has been asked for for decades, has been economic development, and that’s something that Jill has presented a vision for. So as we look forward to the LA Olympics and the FIFA World Cup coming up, she presented a vision to our board of integration and opportunities for our community involving those events. We are really looking forward to it.”
Which is not to say Lamkin only stood out for her larger vision. Perhaps nobody outside of city government goes deeper into the weeds of local governance than Lamkin.
“She’s prepared,” Curry said. “She’s direct, she’s tenacious. When I found out that she meets with the City every single month and reviews all open permits for her member businesses in the Downtown Business Association, I was blown away. That level of detail and that level of professional responsibility to her constituents is just superior.”
Lamkin met once a month with every City department head, except IT and Finance. She would even show up at the Public Works monthly “All Hands” meetings, because that department touches so many aspects of what goes on throughout the city in a nitty gritty, on-the-ground way.
“It was really important to me that all of the Public Works employees knew who I was,” she said. “It was like, I want you to be able to look at me and go, ‘Hey, I know that’s that lady that runs downtown, and if I need something, or I have a question, I know who to come to.’”
As a result, Lamkin rarely walks downtown when one of the “orange shirts,” as she calls the Public Works workers, didn’t call out, ‘Hey Jill! How’s it going?’” Those small connections create a larger fabric.
“The same thing with Community Development and sitting down once a month and going through every single outstanding permit that a business has in order to say, ‘Okay, who has the ball right now? Are we waiting on you? Are you waiting on us?’” Lamkin said. “I was the in-between, and it just gave me the ability to look at things in a deeper way, and for both sides to have empathy for the other, too, which makes a difference. Because sometimes there is a reason that something takes longer, but sometimes there’s not. And it’s hard sometimes for City staff to understand what it’s like when every day of a delay is one where you can’t collect revenue…It’s like, ‘I know your process says you have 23 days to make the response. But if you can make it in seven instead, that’s almost two weeks of additional revenue that a business can generate. And so instead of like, managing to the end of the deadline, let’s try managing to the beginning of the deadline. If you’re in that role and don’t have that empathy and understanding, it would be super easy to just say, ‘Okay, well, as long as we’re never going past the deadline, we’re meeting all of our goals.’”
Accountability, in other words, with a velvet touch.
Mayor Amy Howorth said that Lamkins’ ability to connect — between business and government, between one business district to the entire business community, between local and regional agencies and organizations — is an indispensable gift.
“It’s building relationships,” Howorth said. “It’s building accountability. And it’s a real, broad, high level understanding of what’s happening. And that was just her downtown business lens, right? I know she’ll bring that lens to the entire city. She’s just a pro. The thing about Jill, she is proactive. She’s certainly not sitting back, ever, and saying, ‘Okay, the status quo is fine,’ for any organization. She will come up with ideas that are strategic. In terms of partnership with the city, and partnerships with other groups, you know, she knows that the chamber has a function, through economic development, to help the City. And she will make that happen.” ER
Jill Lamkin will be a great Chamber CEO. She has put in the time and is all about Manhattan Beach.