A Metro Atlanta Chamber executive who helped establish the business coalition’s flagship program to recruit young professionals to the region is stepping down to build other companies.
Kate Atwood, who’s led the chamber’s ChooseATL campaign from its infancy, plans to leave the chamber April 12. She said she will launch Be Essential Ventures, a business that will build the brands of other companies, particularly ones that want to have civic impact.
Atwood also helped the chamber launch THEA, a digital streaming service to spotlight the metro area's arts and creative economy. Atwood said she will remain engaged in THEA, helping it to build a sustainable business model as a showcase for the Atlanta area's television, music, film, arts and technology scenes.
The chamber started THEA (think: The-A, as in Atlanta) in 2017 as a unique digital recruiting tool for young professionals. The scripted and documentary content is produced by small and large organizations and the platform is backed by major Atlanta companies.
Atwood also will lead a newly planned chamber-backed festival, Over-the-Top Fest, an event to connect content creators and business leaders in the streaming video world.
“It’s been four years with ChooseATL and I’ve enjoyed so much of it,” she said. “It was a hard decision to make.”
Launched in 2015 by the marketing group Nebo Agency and propelled by the chamber, ChooseATL focuses not only on Atlanta but also its varied suburbs. ChooseATL holds block parties and smaller gatherings of young professionals. The group also produced content to highlight the region’s culture, business climate and neighborhoods.
ChooseATL's coming out party was in 2016 in Austin, Texas, at the South by Southwest festival, when the group recruited about 1,000 Atlanta area "ambassadors" to help sell the Atlanta region. ChooseATL rented out the three-floor Speakeasy lounge on Austin's Congress Avenue and loaded it with headliners such as rapper Killer Mike.
ChooseATL has returned to Austin each year since to carry the metro Atlanta banner at one of the world’s best-known arts, entertainment and technology festivals.
Deisha Barnett, the chamber’s chief brand and communications officer, whose portfolio includes ChooseATL, will run the organization. She said the effort “will remain a fundamental part” of the chamber’s business and talent recruitment efforts.
Barnett called Atwood “a creative visionary” and said the chamber will continue to work with Atwood as one of her clients.
ChooseATL’s focus from the start was to target millennials, the generation of workers born from the early 1980s to mid-1990s.
Some studies have shown Atlanta lost some of its luster to young adults during a period that coincided with the Great Recession.
Millennial recruitment will remain a focus, but the organization will also include new efforts aimed at Gen-Z, or the generation born between the mid-1990s and early 2000s, who are beginning to enter the workforce, Barnett said.
ChooseATL recently returned from its fourth South by Southwest venture, which Barnett described as a success. She said the group doesn’t have firm plans to return to Austin with multi-day events, but “out-of-market activations are still a critical component of ChooseATL.”
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