Dynamic Decisions Podcast

Mandy White, Chief Economic Development Officer for the Greater Jackson, TN Chamber, has spent nearly three decades helping turn Jackson, Tennessee into a manufacturing hub home to 60 to 70 companies, including several Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 brands. In this episode, she breaks down what actually won the region's largest single investment ever, and how she keeps the workforce pipeline growing to match it. Spoiler alert, it wasn't incentives.

• How Jackson won a $425M Georgia Pacific plant, the largest investment in its history, by building trust with the site selection consultant before incentives were ever discussed
• Why "Team Tennessee" thinking means Mandy sometimes coaches competing communities, including teaching a Japanese business etiquette course to two nearby towns bidding against each other for the same project
• The real mismatch between fast-moving manufacturing technology and slow-moving educational institutions, and how Jackson bridges it
• Mandy's decision-making breakdown across four leadership personas, and how 27 years on the job shifted her from a balanced approach to a values-first one

If you think incentives are what wins industrial recruitment, this conversation will change your mind.