For anyone who has met Katherine Harrington, you might say her enthusiasm and positive attitude are contagious. 

Harrington, the president and CEO of the West Des Moines Chamber of Commerce, is a familiar face to many in the Greater Des Moines area, with her involvement as former board president of Ballet Des Moines and a teacher at its school, to her work with the Food Bank of Iowa and her role with the governor’s STEM council. But it’s her new role where she believes all prior roads have been leading.

From growing up in a newspaper family to turning professional dancer and later a marketing professional, Harrington said her innate drive and creativity make her a perfect fit for her new role leading the West Des Moines business community. Before her current role, she worked on the sales team at the Business Record and was most recently director of innovation.

How did you get involved in the economic development and marketing industry? 

I grew up in the newspaper business with my dad and grandfather in Mattoon, Ill. I was always around creative people. With my studies at Illinois, and then my career path has been with media organizations. I started my own magazine company in San Diego. I started from scratch a media company that included a monthly magazine, a website, a daily newsletter and events. We had news that was targeted to leaders in technology and innovation, and then 9/11 happened, and the bottom fell out of the tech market. We stuck it through for a couple of years, but then finally had to close the doors. My then-husband got a job in Des Moines, so that’s how I ended up here. I love to talk about innovation and what the future holds, and who are the people that will be the change-makers. I love to take my creative brain and my analytic brain, and look for ways to solve problems and fill everyday needs.

Do you have any specific philosophies or tools you use to be successful at your job? In life?

From a philosophy perspective, I am a hard charger and a positive-thinking enthusiast, and I feel like everybody has great ideas that they can bring to the table, so I really think everyone has a voice, and should have a voice. We can all contribute. We can all be part of the solution. It’s interesting where some of these problem-solving ideas can come from. An 11-year-old child or my 90-year-old dad. If we listen to our community and watch, it’s very telling how everyone is coming together right now, and I love bringing everybody’s ideas together. If you’re around someone who is energetic and positive, it can propel our day and what you’re thinking about, and I hope to bring that to the West Des Moines Community.

How have your past experiences, both in your career and in life, prepared you for your current role?

Everything I’ve done in my entire life has led me up to this point. I’m exactly equipped to be the person sitting in this seat, and I didn’t know that until I got here. Now that I`m here, my past experiences traveling the country, that creative side of me as an artist, that hard work, and knowing that what you put into your day is exactly what you’re going to get out of it. I understand that hard-work ethic, and being a ballerina, and my hard work in sales, that helps me understand that you have to roll up your sleeves and do the hard work and if you do, great results will flow. I’m a huge innovator, and I’m not scared of new ideas. That creative brain has gotten me to that point. I love the big ideas, but I love executing them.

What are some of your goals in your new job?

Well, I had outlined some very specific goals, but they changed in about two days [because of the COVID-19 pandemic]. So we are aligning our goals with what many other chambers are doing right now, and we are stronger working in tandem. Those are helping keep our companies in business, helping keep our employees employed, and helping keep West Des Moines strong. When I started [we only had one other employee]. All others had left for one reason or another, so I’m hiring a brand new staff, dealing with COVID, seeing businesses close, hiring a team and finding ways to solve some of those challenges we’re all facing right now.

How would you describe your management style?

Open, transparent, absolutely loving, because loving your team is important. I am not here to set myself above them. We’re all equal players in what we do here. I am going to help them build their own brand because they are each experts in their own right. I want to prop them up as important individuals in the community and in the state of Iowa. I’m here to be their No. 1 advocate and cheerleader.

What are some of the biggest challenges the West Des Moines Chamber of Commerce is experiencing today, beyond COVID-19?

I think overall, just as it is with chambers across the country, but how do we stay relevant for the future? How do we become a vital source for that next generation, those intelligent young people that are in college right now and graduating? You’ll see chambers across the county reinventing themselves, and we’ll be doing that moving forward. We’re here to think big and challenge ourselves, and to challenge our region. How do we position ourselves? We don’t have a [convention and visitors bureau], so how do we become a broader source for what to do in West Des Moines, when to do it, and who are the people doing great things. You’re going to see us morph into an interesting organization that people will want to be a part of.

Tell us something people may not know about you.

I left Mattoon at 14 to become a professional ballerina. That led me across the U.S. from Michigan to Seattle to San Francisco. I joined the Tulsa Ballet and finally ended up in New York City, where I lived for four years and did some work with a dance company. ν