Setting New Course for Chamber

The downtown headquarters of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce is filled with photos of each year’s top volunteer executive: row after row of distinguished-looking white men, more than 100 in all.

It is photographic documentation of an old boy’s network that was synonymous with chambers of commerce in this country.

But the most recent portrait is different. The subject is Alison A. Winter, chief executive of Northern Trust Bank of California, a fast-growing division of Chicago-based Northern Trust Corp. And Alison Winter is not an old boy.

Winter, 52, is a working mother and sometime radio pitchman for the private bank she heads. She also happens to be the first woman to hold the job of chairman--she prefers that title to “chairperson”--in the 110-year history of the Los Angeles chamber.

During her yearlong term at the top of the Los Angeles chamber, which ends Dec. 31, Winter has used the high-profile position to help steer the business organization, still burdened with a somewhat stodgy image, into a role that is more activist and more collaborative. Many in the business community say her efforts are paying off.

The work has been a partnership with chamber President Ezunial “Eze” Burts, 52, a longtime city administrator who took the top chamber staff job less than two years ago and, as the first African American to run the group, vowed to change its direction.

Burts gives Winter substantial credit for helping drag the chamber into the 1990s and push it toward the next century, through technological improvements; more contact with elected officials; and increased attention to sometimes forgotten quarters such as small firms, minority business groups and welfare recipients.

But the task Winter and Burts have set for themselves is akin to turning an ocean liner that has been cruising in roughly the same direction for decades. The captains can point to progress, but the reorientation still seems too stately for some of the passengers.

The volunteer chairman gets only one year to make a mark before handing the job to another well-placed executive. Next up is Bank of America Executive Vice President R. Thomas Decker.

“I feel really good about the direction that the chamber has taken on really important issues for the region like welfare-to-work,” Winter said. “The real test will be how many people will be placed in jobs,” rather than what critics say.

Winter’s reassuring voice can be heard on radio commercials inviting investors to bring their banking and trust accounts to Northern Trust’s growing network of offices--the 10th just opened in Beverly Hills. Her style is a mix of welcoming den mother and results-demanding boss.

“Alison is highly organized and efficient and yet she has a very relaxed, warm style, and I think this relaxed, warm style has served her leadership very well,” said Andrea Van de Kamp, chairman of Sotheby’s West Coast and a member of the chamber’s 70-person board. “She’s very good at getting other people involved so that it’s not her plan, it’s suddenly our plan.”

The plan this time--the remaking of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce--is one that has been tried many times in response to the changing characteristics of the business community. Gone are the days when the heads of a few large banking, retail and manufacturing corporations could dominate the business scene. New industries and small and ethnic firms have proliferated.

Winter and Burts have been working to implement recommendations made in a 1995 study by McKinsey & Co., which found that the chamber needed to be more responsive to its more than 1,500 members and more of an advocate for business.

This year, the chamber’s leadership chose to concentrate on welfare-to-work programs, local government reform, transportation and water. In 1999, it will continue the focus on welfare reform, water and transportation--specifically the expansion of Los Angeles International Airport--plus education, Los Angeles City Charter reform and business-related year 2000 computer problems.

Burts said Winter “has forced this organization to modernize, to think forward.”

“Alison is not only a vision person and a long-range thinker, she’s a bottom-line person” who instituted a quarterly reporting system on specific objectives in the chamber’s strategic plan, Burts said.

Winter and Burts are particularly proud of the chamber’s contribution to welfare reform, which began earlier this year in Los Angeles County. The chamber received a $100,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation to establish a business network to work with government, companies and community organizations to provide jobs. The network, called Welfare to Work Leadership, has launched a welfare reform section on the chamber’s Web site (https://www.lachamber.org) that explains the reform efforts and how businesses can participate; it also serves as a jobs clearinghouse. A marketing campaign will promote job development and highlight outstanding training efforts. A conference to drum up business participation is scheduled for January.

Winter and Burts also point to improving relations with local, state and federal lawmakers. The chamber organized a day for members to meet with the Los Angeles City Council to air concerns. It drew more than 200 business representatives and most council members, and went so well that it will be repeated each year.

“I feel like we are getting where we need to get,” Winter said. “The chamber focus is clearly to be a more effective advocacy voice for business, but we had not reached out enough to our elected officials.” The chamber leadership also made two lobbying trips to Sacramento and one to Washington.

In addition, reaching out to other mainstream business groups, minority business organizations and labor and community groups on a variety of issues, including charter reform, has been an important part of her agenda, Winter said.

“It’s a change in the way we do business. We recognize that no one organization can be the sole voice of business in the region,” she said.

This inclusive spirit “appropriately reflects the changes that are going on in this community,” said Patty DiDominic, chief executive of PDQ Personnel Services and a former president of the National Assn. of Women Business Owners. “It’s the right thing for the chamber do be doing. . . . It’s a never-ending work in progress.”

The chamber also is offering new services for members, such as discounted workers’ compensation insurance and telecommunications services, and has improved communications through its new Web site and a revamped monthly publication. A chamber-sponsored international trade program called LA Trade, and its Web site, called TradePort (https://www.tradeport.org), has assisted more than 250 local companies and recently teamed with several minority organizations to encourage exports by small, women-owned and minority-owned businesses.

The chamber and its leadership have made headway, many in the business community acknowledge. But some critics say they still see the same old organization, unable to goad itself to new levels of business activism.

“The chamber is not there when you need them,” said one sometime-ally of the organization, who wished to remain anonymous. “They need to decide whether they really want to be in the advocacy business.”

Others are more upbeat, both on and off the record.

“I give them pretty high marks,” said Gary Mendoza, former Los Angeles deputy mayor for economic development, ex-commissioner of corporations for California and now a lawyer at Riordan & McKinzie. “I hear they’re providing some really valuable membership services, and I think Eze is beginning to harness the energy that is there,” he said.

“Alison is just doing a super job,” said Caroline Leonetti Ahmanson, who was one of the first female directors of the chamber and who remains on the board. “She has really taken hold of the thing and proven to be a sparkplug in getting the chamber to take a more active role.”

Hector Barreto, chairman of the Latin Business Assn., said the minority business group has found its growing interaction with the chamber to be useful “as a way for us all to coalesce around issues that are important to all of our communities.” He added that joint meetings of the two organizations are being discussed.

“We have a good relationship with the chamber,” Barreto said.

Burts says change will continue at the chamber and that perceptions will eventually catch up.

“I think it’s better for us to go out and do good work” than to seek recognition for the work, he said. “I’m very pleased with our progress, and I’m especially pleased with our board leadership.”