By Harry Boot-Haury—
I am still catching my breath from last week in San Diego, where board members Joe Solis and Joy Baucom, several GGBA members, and I joined roughly 750 LGBTQ+ and allied business owners, corporate procurement professionals, and fellow chamber leaders at the NGLCC International Business & Leadership Conference. I also return with exciting news: GGBA was honored as NGLCC’s 2026 Rising Star Affiliate Chamber of the Year.
Standing on that stage to accept it, I felt the full weight of the recognition. For us, “rising star” is not a beginning; it is a homecoming. It is national affirmation of the extraordinary work our team has poured into rebuilding GGBA over the past two years, an effort that reached a milestone with our relaunch this June, and that continues. That work is being noticed.
Healthy, Resilient, and Ready is not just a conference theme; it is a fair description of where GGBA stands today. We are healthy: growing in membership, growing in corporate sponsors, and growing in engagement. We are resilient: at 52 years old, we have moved through turbulent times, great times, and every kind of time in between, and we are still here. And we are ready to build on the solid foundation we now have, to expand our programming, launch new partnerships and initiatives, and take GGBA to new heights.
The most impactful hour I spent all week was a mainstage discussion bringing together national leaders from the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), Disability:IN, the National Veteran-Owned Business Association (NaVOBA), the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), the Asian/Pacific Islander American Chamber of Commerce and Entrepreneurship (National ACE), Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP), and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), representing the full breadth of America’s diverse business communities. Faced with the same political headwinds so many of us have navigated over the past 18 months, these longtime partners have only drawn closer, strengthening collaborations that were already there. One powerful example: they have banded together to create a unified global certification program, reducing the need for a business to seek separate certifications from multiple organizations. And they are leaning into the intersecting parts of all our identities rather than treating them as separate boxes to check, because almost none of us is only one thing. So many of the entrepreneurs we serve are LGBTQ+ and a person of color, and a woman, and a veteran, and a small business owner working hard to keep the doors open.
What struck me most was how simple the shared goal turned out to be: we all want the same thing. We want to see these businesses grow and thrive. When one diverse business succeeds, it does not come at the expense of another. It widens the door for everyone behind it.
That is exactly the posture GGBA has been building toward. Our values name partnership plainly: we achieve more through collaboration. A chamber like ours is strongest when we are not protecting turf but sharing roadmaps, with other LGBTQ+ chambers, with our sibling diversity organizations, with the corporate partners still choosing to show up, and with one another as members. From our workshops and mentoring to our events across San Francisco and the East Bay, the whole premise is that we grow faster together than we ever could apart.
To Joe, Joy, and the members who made the trip: thank you for representing GGBA so well. To those who could not make it, I hope you will join us next year, when NGLCC will mark its 25th anniversary in Washington, D.C. Healthy, resilient, and ready is where the national movement is. It is also, I am proud to say, where GGBA is.
Aaron Boot-Haury is the President and CEO of the Golden Gate Business Association.
GGBA Message from Leadership
Published on August 27, 2026
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