How the new Chamber chief aims to up its ‘cool’ factor
Unlike so many Brooklynites who have made the borough their adoptive home, the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce’s new leader is a proud local product. Hector Batista, the Chamber’s president and CEO since October, grew up in the borough, where he saw firsthand the defining role of mom-and-pop businesses in Brooklyn’s character.
His father was a travel-agency owner in Sunset Park, and Batista remembers his parents talking about the challenges of small business at the dinner table. “At the heart of this city is the small business,” Batista says. “The vibrancy of our city, the vibrancy of the borough, is the diversity of the borough and our retail shopping strips.”
So Batista takes to heart his role as an advocate for small businesses, recognizing that in a booming borough they face new challenges, ranging from high rents to new regulation. At the same time, he sees that much of the economic growth in the borough comes from new, tech-related industries that aren’t generally part of the century-old group’s traditional membership. For the Chamber, it’s a pivot point.