Category: News

by Lisa Ventriss, President

Once a year, I gather with my fellow state business roundtable executives to network, commiserate, and share best practices. This year we met in Detroit, where I happened to stay at the same hotel as the LA Rams football team, who were in town to play the Lions.

At the onset, let me state that the Rams are my brother’s favorite football team, and interestingly enough, my husband is the former professor of the team’s head coach. So, when I checked into the hotel on Saturday for my meetings and literally ran into the LA Rams team, I was delighted! (more…)

(South Burlington, Vt.)  Referencing her valuable contributions to the State of Vermont in education policy, the New England Secondary School Consortium Council has selected Lisa Ventriss, President of Vermont Business Roundtable as a Public Will Fellow and member of the Vermont Team.

The Public Will Forum will serve as an expert advisory council informing the work of state agencies of education and the governing body of the NESSC. “I am honored to participate in this important group and look forward to the opportunity to benefit all of Vermont’s children through the work of the Consortium”, stated Ventriss.

The New England Secondary School Consortium (NESS) is a regional partnership that promotes forward-thinking innovations in the design and delivery of secondary education across New England. Five partner states  – Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont – work together to close persistent achievement gaps and promote greater educational equity and opportunity for all students.

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California-based culture consultant and author Jackie Freiberg, Ph.D., came to Vermont last week with a message for the state’s leading employers: “People want to work for a cause and people want to buy for a cause.” (more…)

National Life Consultant and Author Jackie Freiberg Coming to Vermont to Talk About Stand-Out Leadership

Authored CAUSE! A Business Strategy for Standing Out in a Sea of Sameness, Telling the Story of National Life’s Distinctive Leadership and Corporate Culture

It’s not enough that Jackie Freiberg, Ph.D., espouses the value of corporate cause. She actually wrote the book about it.

The leadership consultant and author is heading to Vermont in September to engage as many as 400 CEOs and other business leaders at the Vermont Business Roundtable’s third annual Executive Leadership Series breakfast at the Sheraton Burlington. Dr. Freiberg has been a long-time consultant to National Life Group and has helped CEO Mehran Assadi and others at the company transform it into a financial powerhouse by rallying around the simple but difficult promise “Do good. Be good. Make good.” (more…)

August 16, 2016 – Today, Lisa Ventriss, President of Vermont Business Roundtable (VBR) and Jeffrey Carr, President, Economic & Policy Resources (EPR), announced the Q3 2016 results of their joint initiative, the VBR-EPR Business Conditions Survey.

Methodology

The quarterly survey provides both a look back at the previous quarter and a predictive index going forward. The data for both the backward and forward-looking questions are weighted to the Vermont economy by sector employment and turned into “diffusion indices”.[1] These diffusion indices provide a tool for analyzing and presenting insight into the Vermont economy over time through the sentiments of the Roundtable members. The survey asked eight retrospective and prospective questions about the CEOs’ economic outlook, demand, capital spending, and employment.

Overall Findings

The latest survey, which was conducted during the first two weeks of July 2016, achieved a response rate of 69 percent overall and included a 50 percent or greater response rate from all but three sectors within the membership.  Survey results show that: (more…)

by Lisa Ventriss

After a tremendous amount of hard and important work by the Legislature and Administration in the last biennium around education reform, for which they deserve our recognition and appreciation, Act 46: Unification to Achieve Sustainable Governance, was signed into law in June 2015. It created immediate opportunities for school districts and supervisory unions to unify, an action which will result in better educational opportunities for students and cost effectiveness for taxpayers. (more…)

Mr. Margolis’s commentary in VTDigger, entitled “Why Vermont Has Little to Fear From Florida” (July 10^th) identified some interesting information regarding income tax filers, issues that can impact their mobility, and the demographics of those entering and leaving Vermont. At the conclusion of his piece, he casually states that “Vermont, like every other state, has its economic problems and some things to worry about. Rich folks moving to Florida is not one of them.” I’d like to offer another perspective; rich folks moving to Florida is a big problem that we should worry about. (more…)

by Lisa Ventriss, President

Everybody has a vice and handbags are mine. In fact, I can easily justify a new purchase at the expense of other priorities, including my retirement fund. And recently, as I was admiring the latest addition to my collection, I thought about the parallels with state spending priorities and their impacts on business outlook.

Last month, 74 percent of Roundtable members participated in our quarterly Business Conditions Survey. Results showed that a majority of CEOs have a neutral outlook toward the current business climate and, since the prior survey, have shifted from ‘neutral’ to ‘mildly pessimistic’ regarding the business climate in the coming three months. (more…)

Today, Lisa Ventriss, President of Vermont Business Roundtable (VBR) announced that, through its Foundation, four new Nordic Education Scholarships have been awarded to Vermont students for the 2016 Academic Year.  The Nordic Scholars, half of whom are first-generation college-bound students, are from Windsor and Rutland counties who have been accepted into programs in computer science, civil engineering and healthcare-related fields. A committee of Roundtable members made funding determinations after review of written application materials and personal interviews with finalists. (more…)