‘Chairman’ Gregory keeps pushing Memphis forward
Sports philanthropy, civic activism – now with new Greater Memphis Chamber role
Over the years, Willie Gregory has served on panels that oversaw the repurposing of The Pyramid, the construction of Fedexforum, the renovation of Shelby Farms and the search for a University of Memphis president.
His has been a key name in Memphis for nearly three decades, a long tenure, long enough for a new generation of Memphians to know his name but not know precisely how he reached this point today.
“I think I have something to help my city move forward, be the city it can be,” Gregory said.
He is stretching for what may prove his largest civic endeavor yet. Lots of civic leaders quietly wind down their careers. Gregory has opened a new chapter on a life that is Memphis to the core.
Take a look at this. True or false?
❚ The incoming chairman of the Greater Memphis Chamber, a predominantly white group of 3,000 businesses, grew up with a single mom in the city’s poorest neighborhood.
❚ A list of the 10 most influential African Americans in Memphis basketball includes Gregory.
❚ Memphis is a place where high school graduates of humble origin can get ahead.
You probably know, yet it bears re
peating: One and two are true. And three? That incoming chamber chairman is trying to make sure it is true.
Tall, lean, once a football player at Booker T. Washington High School, now an adult with a quiet gravitas, he’s Willie H. Gregory Sr.
“He’s a person whose presence is very sincere about what he is doing,” said former high school classmate Fred Jones. “In spite of his success he’s never forgotten where he came from. He wears that on his chest.”
‘We call him Mr. Chairman’
Gregory, the global community impact director at the 3,200-employee Nike Inc. distribution centers in Memphis, took over as chamber chair this year, succeeding Fedex scion Richard Smith in the voluntary and unpaid position he holds in addition to his Nike job.
Memphians for years cared little about who might chair the business organization. The chamber was like a quiet club. Then the group created an inner ring called the Chairman’s Circle.
The circle’s 100-plus members, primarily corporate leaders, set out in 2013 to create for the chamber a vigorous role in Memphis and Shelby County politics and economic development. Suddenly, the chamber chairman mattered.
Smith’s predecessor in the chairmanship, entrepreneur Carolyn Hardy, aimed to win commerce for African American firms, particularly among white chamber members. Smith aimed to revamp economic development and in turn expand a local economy he contended was stalled for two decades. And Gregory?
He aims for career training — steering tens of thousands of high school graduates into vocational and community college programs and in turn filling positions at local companies left vacant for want of skilled workers.
“We call him Mr. Chairman now,” Jones said with a laugh.
“Whoever thought someone with his background, growing up in (ZIP code) 38126, that he would become the chairman of the Greater Memphis Chamber,” said Jones, founder of the annual Southern Heritage Classic
football extravaganza at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium. “He’s someone we can show our family and friends and children. He’s the perfect example. Never give up. Keep trying.”
‘Willie ... took a chance on us’
Memphis restaurant entrepreneur Leander Wilson Jr. sees in the new chairman a confident risk taker.
Gregory once took a chance on Wilson himself. It happened when Gregory was in Nike’s corporate spotlight.
Nike is to sports apparel what Fedex is to air cargo. Both became industry leaders. Oregon-based Nike ships 85% of its shoes and apparel to retail stores throughout the country from its Memphis depots. Fedex is a major hauler for the brand, and Nike seated Fedex executive Alan Graf on its board of directors in 2002. In a U.S. company, the board oversees the chief executive officer.
What brought Gregory into the spotlight was Nike co-founder Philip Knight’s decision. He scheduled the annual board of directors meeting in Memphis in 2005 at the National Civil Rights Museum, where Gregory was a leader. Gregory needed a first-rate caterer. He selected Leander Wilson.
Once the head chef at the B.B. King’s Blues Club on Beale Street, Wilson had launched Bear Catering, served barbecue for events at the Southern Heritage Classic, but never had catered a major corporation’s top decision-makers.
“Before we even set up, Willie was there looking. I’m sure he was nervous, putting his trust in a small black catering firm with something of that magnitude,” Wilson said. “Willie just took a chance on us. It worked out well. Phil Knight was pleased. It opened doors for us at other events.”
The road to Nike
If he took a chance on a small caterer, it was a sign of what he had become accustomed to within Nike.
Gregory didn’t rise in the corporate ranks managing the Memphis distribution chain. He rose as a kind of Nike ambassador to Memphis, a position where he looked for causes Nike could support. He had gotten to Nike in a circuitous way.
Graduating from Mississippi Valley State University, Gregory went into the U.S. Army, serving in intelligence for an anti-aircraft missile unit, then joined IBM Corp. He was a sales manager in Seattle for the vaunted company, selling electric typewriters and then computers. When the economy tightened, he returned to Memphis, working for a government jobs agency of the era known as CETA and serving as an assistant football coach at East High School. Nike hired him in 1993 as national customer relations manager.
By then, Nike’s original Memphis distribution center was 11 years old and small compared to what would come. Gregory is credited with convincing Nike’s expansion-minded executives to add the distribution capacity in Memphis’ Frayser area. The expansion came after Knight transformed Nike from a shoe brand into a sports fashion name.
That happened after the company languished in the 1980s and revived around an advertisement hit on by an ad agency in Portland, Oregon. The ad centered on the famous “Just Do It” slogan.
Knight disliked the slogan, took a chance and put it to use in 1988. Consumers were enthralled. Nike soared. The execs soon realized Americans loved watching sports. Participating was something else. By year 2000, the typical American man outweighed the typical American man of 1960 by 25 pounds. And his Tv-watching (and then computer-fixated) children were sedate. If kids sat out sports they might not buy much sports apparel as adults. Nike created a position known as global community impact director.
It is a title Gregory holds today. Like Nike ambassadors to America, impact directors touch communities. They award grants for sports activities, organize sports events, entice kids to play sports, keep Nike in the public eye.
Sponsoring the Beale Street Flippers acrobatic group, handing out $70,000 to build a soccer field in Memphis’ Binghampton area, awarding Shelby County Schools $250,000 to develop a culture of physical activity and physical education — Nike did all this and more. It might sound exactly like how a sports apparel giant ought to spend its profits. Yet this wasn’t simple philanthropy.
Nike was a business, yes, but it strived to be known as a force for good. Nike execs talked about this. The idea was core to the brand image. It made its way into the corporate culture.
Tweeted a Nike global impact director searching for recruits two years ago: “If you believe in the power of sport to move the world, this opportunity may be of interest.”
‘Work with me’
In an interview, Gregory declined to talk much about his Nike position, saying the focus of this article ought to be his more public role for the Greater Memphis Chamber. Whether he was born to the Nike role, or learned it, Gregory was by all accounts superb as philanthropist and community leader.
Accolades came most years, including the University of Memphis’ Distinguished Alumni Award in 2016, the James Herbert White Preeminence Award for philanthropy from Mississippi Valley State University in 2009 and the Kay Gooch Award for Service to the Community from Leadership Memphis in 2002.
Along with accolades came a wider recognition. When important civic groups were formed, and the question arose who should be invited to join, Gregory’s name often came up as someone who was smart and steadfast.
When the chamber in 2013 launched the Chairman’s Circle’s moon missions, Gregory became cochair of Harvard Tech, the mission intended to train 30,000 vocational workers.
When Phil Trenary died in a shooting tragedy in 2018, leaving the Greater Memphis Chamber without a president, Richard Smith, the chairman of the group, looked for an able successor.
Among those Smith asked for advice was Gregory. He recommended Beverly Robertson, former president of the National Civil Rights Museum. She got the job and later called Gregory. He remembered she got to the point:
“I need you to work with me.”
Harvard Tech never quite accomplished what it set out to do. But Gregory saw an opportunity to work with Robertson and put the idea back in motion.
He agreed to become chairman of the board. “I think my home city has so much potential,” Gregory said.