Cincinnati has a lot to offer its residents and the international community
By Nicole Fenyo, Executive Director, European American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Cincinnati
I think Cincinnati is a bit like Warren Buffet.
Before you stop reading, hear me out! If you have read anything about Warren Buffet, you’ll know that he is incredibly wise, smart and successful—both professionally and personally. And yet, he is perhaps the most unassuming high-visibility billionaire ever. He still lives in the same Omaha, Nebraska, home he purchased in 1958 for $31,500.
Cincinnati is a bit like that. Unassuming. Down-to-earth. Quietly getting it done and offering its inhabitants an incredible quality of life.
As a 20-plus year resident of Cincinnati, this discreet wealth became abundantly clear to me when I took the role of executive director of the European American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Cincinnati (EACC) in June 2023.
After 20 years in the manufacturing space and 3.5 years with the Goering Center for Family & Private Business, taking the helm of the EACC, whose mission is to stimulate business and networking relations between Europe and the Cincinnati Tristate region, has been a return to my European roots and has opened up a whole new perspective of our region.
Webster defines wealth as having an “abundance of valuable material possessions or resources.” Cincinnati amply meets the criteria, with our professional sports, multitude of incredible and unique restaurants, highly ranked schools, parks, art, architecture, music and theater, and the list goes on. And then there are the area’s various organizations, from charitable nonprofits to state-sponsored economic development.
The wealth represented by the international business community is also largely unseen and underutilized. JobsOhio identifies close to 1,000 European business entities in the state of Ohio, and REDI and BE NKY identify close to 200 in our Tristate area alone, the majority of which are manufacturers and logistics providers.
As an organization that supports both American and European business entities doing either Transatlantic or indeed global business, the EACC is a connector. Our goal is to connect business professionals, from executives to young professionals, American and European, so that they may share their experiences, lessons learned, and perspectives with one another. We do this by providing opportunities to meet, from the highly structured and exclusive industry symposium (EACC TRANSFORMS) and annual Gala and Beaujolais & More soirees, to the unstructured and open to all networking event (STAMMTISCH), with our Coffee & Commerce, YP Executive Insights Series and issue-specific events in between.
The engagement I have seen from C-suite to YP has been extraordinary and exceptional.
And the opportunities for more value-add connections are huge—among nonprofit, governmental and other industry support organizations, and among business leaders, functional leaders and young leaders. More insights, broader perspectives, valuable referrals and solid support, all with a healthy dose of good humor, will make our lives, our families’ lives and our communities that much richer.
Nicole Fenyo was born in England of Hungarian immigrant parents and moved to Switzerland at the age of 10. After emigrating to the United States herself, she spent four years in South Carolina with a public-private-academic nonprofit working to help local businesses engage in exporting. In 2000, she moved to Cincinnati where she spent 20 years as a strategic marketer in various manufacturing sectors, followed by 3.5 years with the Goering Center for Family and Private Business as director of marketing. Nicole became executive director of the European American Chamber Greater Cincinnati in June 2023.
