One day in 2007, as part of an Emerging Leaders fellowship at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, Lorne Steedley stood in the same Robben Island cell where political activist Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years.
“The whole idea and premise behind this visit was to understand that leadership and transformation can occur anywhere, and how a person like Nelson Mandela used his ability, even in a confined and very restricted space, mentally, physically and psychologically, to be transformative, to bring South Africa out of this apartheid era and then elevate the country and do it in a very peaceful and inclusive manner,” says Steedley, who in November became vice president of diversity and inclusive growth at the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce.
“I think it shows you the power of humanity. … One of the things that struck me is the power of will and how he was able to contribute from a cell.”
In the years since then, and before, Steedley has sought to make his own contributions to society by bettering neighborhoods, striving for economic equity and managing relationships with philanthropic donors across the Southeast. Serious in tone and passionate about his career, he is also easygoing, jovial and calm, with a dry sense of humor that those who don’t know him well might miss.
At the Chamber, he is working to accelerate the organization’s existing diversity and inclusion efforts, both internally and in the broader community, a goal made even more important by inequalities brought to light with renewed intensity by the Black Lives Matter movement.
“America’s going through a very challenging time,” he says. “I stay real focused on the point of view that diversity and inclusion will expand and grow the economy. It creates an incredible opportunity to bring more individuals into the economy in very meaningful ways. It allows them, at a very critical time, to expand the U.S. economy in a way that collectively will make the economy much more robust and much more competitive in a global space.
“Diversity is not just racial,” he adds. “It’s also about thinking collectively.”
Steedley and Dwayne Marshall, vice president of community investment for the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga, met a few years ago when Marshall was working at the Southeastern Council of Foundations and Steedley was the member relations director for the national Council on Foundations’ Southeastern region. After discovering they shared similar philanthropic and policymaking goals, the two began collaborating to design programs for foundations and executives seeking to improve their grantmaking practices.
“One of the skills I think Lorne is really good at – it’s something that we intuitively know but some of us take for granted – is being a good listener,” Marshall says. “I think that’s going to be a very important skill that’s going to serve him well at the Chamber because obviously the Chamber is driven by a collection of members who want to figure out how they can advance and grow their businesses in Chattanooga and Hamilton County.
“I have observed him as being a very observant leader who places a high value on listening. I think he’s going to be a huge asset to our community because he brings a lot of wisdom and a lot of lived experience that I think is going to be helpful as we seek to grow.”
By the time, Steedley, a native of Columbia, South Carolina, and a high school football quarterback, started college in his hometown, he was already acutely interested in social justice and what one of his advisers called “citizenship.” A focus on interdisciplinary studies and his role as president of the NAACP chapter at the University of South Carolina-Columbia gave him a taste of both community engagement and economic development and propelled him closer to what would become his life’s work.
Steedley sidesteps the details of being a young Black man during the civil rights movement, stating simply, “You grow up as a kid in the Southeast in the late ’60s and early ‘70s, you see things, you’re exposed to things, things are going on around you. I wanted to be a part of the solution.”
His first job after college, a position in marketing and sales at Fidelity Investments, took him to Boston – “I saw money as not just currency, but a tool” – and led to 17 years of community improvement work in that city, including six with the City’s Department of Neighborhood Development, a stint as a tenant organizer, and a board post with a development corporation that oversaw housing in the South End.
While in Boston, the ambitious Steedley also earned two master’s degrees – one in sociology, the other in human services – and fellowships at Cape Town and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his research focused on financial literacy.
In 2000, he moved to the Washington, D.C., office of South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges to advance the statesman’s agenda in areas ranging from coastal erosion to the farm bill and possible military installation closures. The post reconnected Steedley with the Palmetto State and gave him an insider’s view of how government works; the collective experience in Boston and D.C. sharpened his innate analytical skills and turned him into a critical thinker.
“Life is about constant learning,” he points out. “I like to read a great deal. I like to interpret what it is that I’m reading because I think it helps inform my decision-making going forward. Sometimes things are presented to you and you have to be able to have balance and look at both sides.”
After a year in the nation’s capital, Steedley dove into his first nonprofit job as a grant maker at the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation, where he examined the effects of gentrification, a longtime interest, and urban sprawl on vulnerable families and advised community organizations from Long Island, New York, to Oakland, California. Five years later, he accepted an offer to manage the staff at Baltimore’s Catholic Charities.
“It became clear, even when I was at MIT, that on some levels it’s about economic development,” he adds. “It’s really about economic sustainability for residents, and particularly low-wealth residents. So I got a little bit more deeply into workforce development.”
In 2012, Steedley transferred to Atlanta for the first of three posts there. Invited by a former grantee, Steedley joined the Partnership for Southern Equity and oversaw transportation, environment and other equity challenges for disenfranchised workers.
Two years later, he applied his growing workforce development knowledge to an Atlanta neighborhood through his post at the Center for Working Families. He then returned to the philanthropy field as member relations director for the Council on Foundations, with a focus on retaining and growing the group’s grantor base in the Southeast.
At the Council, which Steedley likens to “the trade association for all things philanthropy,” he did everything from writing informative blogs to meeting with foundation heads.
It was during this time that Marshall noticed something else about Steedley’s character. “He is a very collaborative leader,” Marshall says. “He’s a big believer that more can be done with all hands being at the table. I liked that about him from the very first time that we met.
“He was also good at follow-up. When Lorne said he was going to do something, he did it, and oftentimes did it in a way that exceeded expectations. So when he says that something is going to be delivered that he promised, he’s pretty consistently done that.”
Integrity and reliability are extremely important to Steedley. “Trust is another big factor for me,” he continues. “I’m a team player. Having myself been a part of athletic teams and other teams before, that kind of collegial environment is a fit for my personality.”
After five years with the Council, Steedley returned to Massachusetts to direct the corporate giving efforts at AllWays Health Partners, an HMO, before heading back to Atlanta to be closer to family and turn the private consulting business he’d launched in 2006 into a fulltime endeavor. “I have a drive, too, around this entrepreneurial space that has also allowed me to analyze the trends,” he says. “Consulting allows you six months to a year of opportunities to go in, learn organizations, learn culture, and learn themes that are really resonating in society and apply that in roles going forward. So the consulting has been a great way to learn.”
The Chamber post is a culmination of a lifetime of experiences, he says. “Diversity and inclusion are very central to what I learned back in undergrad [school] about citizenship and participation. Diversity is actually a business imperative, and it’s also a value-add to corporations, to the broader Chattanooga environment. So it’s sort of like a natural progression that brings me to this space and time.”
Steedley frequently hosts Zoom meetings with utility representatives, health care executives and other Chamber partners; is developing a CEO pledge regarding diversity and inclusion; and hopes to bring U.S. Chamber of Commerce initiatives in economic, talent and policy development to Chattanooga. The Chamber recently hosted a Zoom session to educate small-business owners on how to effectively apply for the second round of Paycheck Protection Program loans, which are designed to keep workers employed and companies afloat during the coronavirus outbreak.
“A number of small African American businesses – 41% from March through April – actually closed because of the impact of the pandemic,” he says. “Fifteen to 20% of those businesses who then applied for PPP [in the first phase] actually received money. … We are aware that so many African American and businesses of color did not receive funding, and much of it’s because of the lack of information. They did not understand how they needed to go about the application process. We also recognize that they’re critical with regards to the economic landscape of the city of Chattanooga.”
Steedley adds he believes that expanding the Chamber’s role as a partner to corporations and organizations will help usher in new possibilities for everyone. “There’s a real opportunity around this reset,” he says, “because we’re going to get past this pandemic.”
Like other cities he’s worked in, Chattanooga is facing the dilemma of how to nurture workforce talent, he notes. “We’ve got to be very inclusive in bringing more young people into these [STEM] occupations and skilling them up, and creating pathways for entrepreneurship. In Chattanooga, the opportunities are there. I think that there’s nothing but victory ahead, but the reality is that we’ll have to train up.”
Although he admits he “can’t play a lick,” Steedley enjoys listening to old-school jazz and the music of Earth, Wind & Fire. He also loves dancing, browsing art shows for the work of African American artists, and traveling internationally. He looks forward to cycling the trails in his new city.
“I’m very excited to be in Chattanooga at this time,” he says. “The success of this work is going to be largely dependent upon how well we can all work together and how well we see this as an opportunity for the community. I’m excited to get to know people and excited to work with others here.”