GMC September 8, 2026 Member Newsletter

For over 75 years, the GMC has brought leaders together to tackle challenges no one organization can solve alone. As we look toward our next chapter, we are building on the strong strategic foundation created by the GMC and its members several years ago, using what we have learned and accomplished together to sharpen our focus for the future. This strategic refresh is about aligning around a new North Star and ensuring the GMC is positioned to create meaningful, measurable impact across Greater Milwaukee.

As part of this work, we recently completed four strategic sprints focused on Education, Talent, Infrastructure, and Neighborhood Development and Public Safety, led by our volunteer executives-on-loan, GMC member Mara Lord of MCW and Brian Thompson, formerly of UWM. Their research and synthesis of conversations are helping us identify common themes, opportunities, and potential next steps. This will also help us bring a longer-term, strategic perspective to complement shorter-term initiatives that are already underway.We also engaged Mayor Cavalier Johnson during this process and are encouraged by his alignment with the direction emerging from the work and his interest in a collaborative partnership.

At the heart of the discussions with our members is a simple ambition: Think Bigger. Act Faster. Deliver Results. We want to help create a region where more people want to live, work, raise a family, build a career, start a business, and invest for the long term. That means making progress across strong schools, safe communities, vibrant neighborhoods, economic opportunity, infrastructure, and quality of life.

The GMC’s role is not to duplicate existing efforts or dictate solutions. It is to bring together the right leaders, resources, expertise, and accountability needed to accelerate progress. Our next chapter must be about moving from convening to action and from activity to measurable impact. We should increasingly be able to answer one simple question: What changed because the GMC was involved?

The GMC has an extraordinary foundation with a remarkable history, an exceptional network of leaders, and decades of credibility – but our history cannot be our strategy. We have the opportunity to build a GMC that is more engaged, relevant, consequential, and the organization that leaders turn to when a challenge is too important, complex or interconnected for any one organization to solve.

Our members are our greatest asset, and your continued engagement demonstrates the power of building relationships and trust. Relationships create trust. Trust creates alignment. Alignment creates action. We are not simply talking about the future of Greater Milwaukee but helping create it.