The Austin Chamber of Commerce named a new executive director last month: Ed Coleman, a longtime influential figure on Chicago’s West Side, who is now using his extensive connections to support local businesses.
Coleman served as chief innovation officer, vice president of community economic development, then president and CEO at Bethel New Life. He was also the founding CEO of West Side Forward, a spinoff of Bethel New Life that launched in 2019.
“I thought I had retired,” Coleman said after he stepped down from West Side Forward at the end of 2023. But a job at the Austin Chamber of Commerce brought him back to the workforce.
The purpose of any chamber of commerce, Coleman said, is to support local businesses. The Austin Chamber does this by promoting West Side businesses and helping them with exposure, plus making sure they understand how to use local and federal tools.
Coleman has previously served as board chair and board member of the Austin Chamber. As the chamber’s new executive director, Coleman has several priorities.
He’s developing a new online directory to connect chamber members with potential customers and clients, plus providing more support to local businesses during grand openings.
Coleman also hopes to create a new membership structure for local nonprofits, so they can be better represented in the Austin Chamber of Commerce.
“The intent is to be able to support nonprofits, as well as for-profits,” Coleman said.
Coleman’s background affords him an extensive network of local players who can help grow businesses that are a part of the Austin Chamber of Commerce.
As a member of the Illinois Comptroller’s advisory board, Coleman is discussing how to connect public officials with West Side businesses to further improve their resources.
Coleman was on the advisory board for the city’s Neighborhood Opportunity Fund and plans to host a networking event with chamber members who can talk with NOF about its small business grants. He also hopes to hold special events to introduce chamber businesses with representatives from the United States Small Business Administration and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
And of course, Coleman plans to continue the Austin Chamber of Commerce’s annual holiday tree lighting ceremony.
“I’ll make sure that particular activity does as much as possible to expose the community to those who are participating in it,” Coleman said.
Coleman’s West Side role
After starting his career as an operations engineer at Amoco Oil, Coleman worked in field operations for the U.S. Census Bureau, taught finance, entrepreneurship and small business management at several Midwest colleges, and did some consulting work.
In 2012, Coleman started at Bethel New Life, which empowers West Side residents through community- and solution-oriented approaches.
“The whole purpose of what I was doing [at Bethel New Life] was to engage in wealth building opportunities for local residents,” Coleman said.
Those wealth building opportunities, he added, focused on three key areas of workforce/career development, business development/entrepreneurship, and investment from companies that provide opportunities to West Side residents.
An example of one such company, Coleman said, is Illinois Tool Works, which opened ITW Speer Academy, a STEM-focused high school, in 2014 on the border of Belmont Cragin and Austin.
“They’re an example of a company that would come in and say, ‘The West Side is worth investing in,’” Coleman said. “’The people on the West Side are capable of taking advantage of the opportunities that we have to offer.’”
And those aren’t just job opportunities, but also those for local construction, suppliers and partnerships.
In 2022, ITW joined with United Way to launch its Commit to a Neighborhood Initiative in order to create living-wage jobs and grow economic development in Belmont Cragin and Austin.
Bethel New Life and West Side Forward also helped prepare contractors for construction opportunities for the Joint Public Safety Training Campus, which opened in 2023 between West Garfield Park and West Humboldt Park.
Connecting businesses with opportunities like these is a focus that Coleman hopes to grow as the new head of the Austin Chamber of Commerce.
“I’m really looking forward to a lot of interaction with the business community of Austin,” Coleman said.
