Charleston Metro Chamber welcomes Senior Vice President of Talent Advancement

The Charleston Metro Chamber is pleased to announce that Barbara Stapleton has joined the Chamber team as Senior Vice President of Talent Advancement. In this role, she plans to dive into the talent challenges in our region by listening to and gaining insight from partners to inform our talent and workforce efforts and allow us to continue to align with key community priorities. She hopes to sustain engagement and alignment with industry demands for our communities’ workforce and future talent pipeline needs.

“We are thrilled to have Barbara lead our Talent Advancement team,” said Bryan Derreberry, President and CEO for the Chamber. “She understands the importance of bridging the talent gap and developing valuable relationships with our schools and business members. Her passion will show brightly in this role and we look forward to seeing the tremendous work our Talent team will continue to do.”

Prior to working for the Charleston Metro Chamber, she served as the Vice President of Business Retention & Talent Initiatives for GO Topeka, a Greater Topeka Partnership organization, and led the talent relocation program, Choose Topeka. She developed, managed and executed business retention & expansion incentive programs with corporate partners to foster and grow the community. She also identified, supported and aligned industry partners with higher education partners and aligned target industries for the community with potential and expanding higher education programs, to ensure business & industry had the talent with the training needed to grow and expand.

The most impactful project she’s ever had the opportunity to work on was a public-private partnership between city and county governments, a local university and a non-profit to create a new technical college campus in an area where household incomes were below the poverty line.

“Whether earning a GED, obtaining a certificate, or pursuing an associate’s degree; to an underserved area of the greater community, it provides an organic opportunity for inclusive prosperity,” said Barbara Stapleton. “The more educated all of us are, the better each of our opportunities for well-paying jobs and the better trained we are to fill employer’s open positions.”

Barbara is originally from Indianapolis, Indiana and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Purdue University and a Master of Science in Management degree from Baker University. She currently lives in North Charleston and is a proud wife to husband, Michael, and mom to two children, Connor and Corinne.

About the Charleston Metro Chamber 

With approximately 1,600 member organizations representing 160,000 professionals, the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce serves as the collective voice of the business community, and a catalyst for regional economic advancement and member success through Talent, Advocacy, Leadership and Business Development. Visit charlestonchamber.org.