Kristen Blessman led the Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce through a shift of not just trying to get new members, but also to shore up resources for smaller women-owned business and greater career growth.

Blessman will leave her almost five-year role as president and CEO to take over as president and general manager for PBS 12 (Colorado Public Television). She previously served as the chief marketing and development officer for Goodwill Industries of Denver.

“It finds unique and innovative ways to be part of the community,” Blessman said of her new organization, which seems to be a theme in her career choices.

Simone D. Ross will take over the chamber as interim CEO.

Blessman said the chamber has grown and changed in that time. It kept it’s longtime Athena Award for “outstanding woman in business and in her community,” but shifted to include more of the winner’s narrative how she got there.

“We wanted not to just have awards and a chicken dinner or whatever,” she said. “A lot of nonprofits do events as fundraisers. But for us, we wanted to get down to why we honor these women. Women tend to grow more and to higher levels if they are able to see someone who has done it before. These women are amazing and telling the story of how they got there is important so other women see that and are inspired.”

She talked corporations into supporting networking and personal growth programs.

“The member numbers of companies are similar (to when I started), but the way we were able to grow revenue-wise was key,” Blessman said. “A lot of corporations had stopped supporting. And when you think about it the chamber itself is kind of an old business model. So we asked, ‘why not help change women’s careers?'”

Blessman said company’s internal resource groups supporting diversity and inclusion “are great for recruiting and retaining women, but not as good for their career growth.” So the chamber offered programming that allowed it to “be a resource connector” and help “grow women’s careers to the highest levels.”

During the pandemic, the chamber’s priorities shifted to helping smaller, women-owned businesses who didn’t qualify for federal Paycheck Protection Program loans because revenue wasn’t high enough to get a good banking relationship going.

“The problem of women growing their career before only got harder during the pandemic,” she said. “So many women-owned businesses were going under. They didn’t have the relationships with the big banks. … We tried to make sure they had what they needed to get though with banking partners, government resources, (Small Business Administration) connections, child care resources and peer-group support right away.”

Ross is a Colorado native who grew up in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood. Her consulting business, Simone D. Ross LLC, works to “catalyze change, elevate and add visibility to issues of workforce equity, and operationalize inclusivity in business,” according to a chamber release.

Leanna Clark, president and CEO of Girl Scouts of Colorado and the chamber’s board chairwoman, will be leading the search for a new CEO.

“While I am so very sorry to be losing Kristen, I am very grateful for her nearly five years with us,” said Clark in a statement. “During her time we approached the $1 million mark in revenue, elevated the (Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce) brand with fresh new events and programming, and of course rebuilt the (Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce) governing board, created the young professionals’ board and several other leadership committees to help grow the (chamber’s) mission. The organization is now well-positioned for a new leader who can take the helm and lead us into the future.”