Duluth chamber makes historic choice to lead board

DULUTH – The Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce, a powerful voice for the city’s business community, made history this fall with the choice of Chiamaka Enemuoh to lead its board of directors.

In more than 150 years, the 1,000-member chamber has never had a person of color as its board chair. The first woman wasn’t appointed to the board until 1973.

Enemuoh, 44, a Black native of Nigeria, is gracious in how she considers the long-overdue role.

Many say it should have happened long ago, “but you have to start somehow, somewhere,” she said. “I’m honored, and I will leave it at that for me.”

Enemuoh, a nurse practitioner who holds a doctor of nursing degree, is the owner, president and licensed director of Lifestone Health Care, an assisted living home in Proctor, Minn., a facility that unusually managed to avoid the spread of COVID-19 throughout the pandemic. She also manages a real estate firm, and has lived in Duluth for two decades, moving from Madison, Wis., along with her husband, a professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth. She has been on the chamber board since 2019.

Lifestone is a small facility that manages residents with advanced medical needs, including those who have suffered strokes or are living with multiple sclerosis or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Enemuoh was named director of the year by Care Providers of Minnesota last year.

A mom to two teenagers, Enemuoh said she was inspired to become an entrepreneur so she could create change.

“I just wanted to be able to do more,” she said, after often finding herself in roles where she was doing difficult work and making improvements, but not being recognized or paid for it. So, she continued to seek higher education.

When Enemuoh was nominated to the board five years ago, chamber President Matt Baumgartner said he was “blown away” by her accomplishments, from building and owning her own business to her experience as an advanced practice medical provider.

“She stands on her own merits,” he said.

He cited other historic city elections in the last decade, including former Mayor Emily Larson, Duluth’s first female mayor and city councilors Janet Kennedy and the late Renee Van Nett, the first African American and the first Native American woman elected to the council, respectively. People like his young daughter see someone other than a white man in a leadership role and it’s “see it, become it.”

“I think that is so powerful and cannot be overstated,” Baumgartner said.

Enemuoh said chamber priorities in 2025 include “responsible taxation,” building health care alliances, housing expansion and workforce development. Ensuring the city of Duluth fills critical vacant roles, including a new planning and economic development director and city administrator, is also a priority, along with making workplaces more inclusive.

The area’s unemployment rates for some people of color are much higher than that of white residents, Baumgartner said. U.S. Census estimates show a 12% rate for Native Americans and Alaska Natives and 24% for African Americans in the Duluth metro area, which includes Douglas and Carlton counties. A Minnesota Department of Economic Development grant has allowed the chamber to offer financial support to people of color who are entrepreneurs or looking for work, in efforts to move the needle on those numbers.

Enemuoh’s new role and her ability to lead isn’t about her being a person of color who runs a business, she said, but about the economy and the health of the community.

“This is about moving forward,” she said.