Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber creates position to support minority owned businesses

The Chamber For a Greater Chapel Hill-Carrboro recently created the position of business success navigator and selected business expert Taylor Gay to fill the role. 

Ian Scott, vice president for advocacy at the chamber, said the organization works to enhance the economic vitality and the quality of life of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area. The Chamber focuses on supporting small businesses, with a specific emphasis on Black-owned, Latine-owned and refugee-owned businesses, Scott said. 

That's where the new business success navigator position comes into play — to help all small business owners, especially those from underrepresented communities, identify the resources they need to start, grow and thrive, Scott said.

Gay said business has always been present in her life because she comes from four generations of entrepreneurs. She said she also has a background working in financial and cultural sustainability and works to find the intersectionality between sustainability and entrepreneurship and how this connects with Black, Indigenous and people of color communities. 

“I like to say pretty much if there's a phase of entrepreneurship, I've worked at an organization that has serviced that phase — whether it was ideation, creation or prototyping,” Gay said.

She added that while nonprofits tend to utilize business navigator positions, local governments may not. The towns, county and different stakeholders, though, saw a gap and decided they should take their money and invest in this, Gay said.

Gay's day-to-day duties will be a mix of serving local businesses as well as connecting with the local entrepreneurial ecosystem — the multiple entrepreneurial support organizations that connect with local small businesses, she said. 

She also said she will also follow up and maintain connections between the Chamber and local businesses to see how they can further help and make better policy decisions.

“Thanks to support from the Town of Chapel Hill, Town of Carrboro and Orange County, we know we have durable funding support to maintain this position for the next five years,” Scott said.

Scott said Gay is undaunted by a challenging opportunity, which is exactly the attitude needed for this position. He added that while it's always easier to utilize an existing program, creating the new position is a risk worth taking. 

Jenny Grant, former director of operations at the NC Rural Center, said she first met Gay when she interviewed to be a business operations specialist at NCRC.

“Everything that she does is with this lens of how can she help better support entrepreneurs, understanding that a lot of times a really great way to bolster the economy is by individual contributors and entrepreneurs,” Grant said.

She said that Gay is not only knowledgeable about the entrepreneurial ecosystem, but is also really good at making personal connections with people and guiding them to success. She said that Gay brings a young energy and out-of-the-box thinking that will push the chamber to reach new audiences.

“Our hope is that by equipping a person whose full-time job is helping people navigate to the resources they need, that will break down some silos, expand opportunities and create new pathways to success for people who have been shut out in the past or have not had enough opportunity in the past,” Scott said.

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Correction: A previous version of this story misstated a group that Gay will serve in her day-to-day activities. The Daily Tar Heel apologies for this error.