Findings from a national consultant, with input from Northern Kentucky’s business leaders, indicate that our region is competitive but needs to proactively tackle emerging risks with new strategies to maintain this competitiveness.
In April, BE NKY Growth Partnership (BE NKY), in partnership with Economic Leadership, released “Navigating Change & Charting a Course to a More Competitive Northern Kentucky,” a five-year regional strategic action agenda which outlines critical needs for maintaining our region’s economic competitiveness.
The report incorporated the results of a community strategy campaign led by BE NKY which included more than 40 interviews with dozens of business leaders at NKY’s major employers in the advanced manufacturing, life sciences, information technology, and supply chain management sectors, as well as the results of surveys from business and community leaders that attended BE NKY’s annual forum in January.
Recent reports on Northern Kentucky’s population growth and labor supply, housing needs, and workforce ecosystem also informed Economic Leadership’s report.
Feedback from Northern Kentucky’s business community aligns with Economic Leadership’s findings that the following are critical needs for the region:
- Talent retention, attraction, and skill alignment
- Coordinated planning and actions for housing and infrastructure growth
- Creation and promotion of a recognized regional brand narrative
- Diversify the economy and leverage entrepreneurship to build and retain local wealth
- Improve collaborative capacity to achieve desired results
“Northern Kentucky is in a good place, and has the momentum and resources to succeed, but we can’t get complacent,” said BE NKY Research Director David McAleese. “The regions that thrive decades from now will be those that work today to address the issues threatening their region’s economic advantages.”
Talent retention, attraction, and skill alignment
Major employers interviewed by BE NKY believe the region must continue to develop a labor force with the necessary educational attainment, skills, and diversity required for their operations. To not do so will strain their existing operations and be an impediment to future growth. NKY needs to prepare its residents with in-demand, work-ready skills and grow the labor force participation rate for current residents through strategies such as better childcare options for women, programs to increase work opportunities for the elderly or disabled, and increasing the number of students completing career and technical education programs each year.
The region will also need to prioritize talent attraction and retention, with a recommendation to add 600 net new workers to our labor force each year. Other communities in the U.S. have worked to address this need by participating in the ACT Work Ready Communities program and expanding on the Welcoming America collaborative to connect immigrants with work opportunities and important support services.
Coordinated planning and actions for housing and infrastructure growth
Northern Kentucky needs income-aligned housing to attract and retain young talent and essential workers such as nurses, teachers, police officers, firefighters, and other community service roles. The region needs to proactively encourage housing development with a wider variety of products, including building on smaller lots, and encouraging higher density through apartments, townhomes, condos, duplexes, and accessory dwelling units. At the same time, coordinating infrastructure improvements around the region’s roads, utilities, and transportation will enable us to accommodate and manage needed growth.
Strategies to achieve this goal include creation of a capital improvement plan detailing earmarked and proposed infrastructure improvements, completion of zoning reviews for housing in Boone, Kenton, and Campbell counties, and updating zoning regulations to encourage more housing development with a wider variety of product.
Creation and promotion of a recognized regional brand narrative
To draw new people and businesses to the region, Northern Kentucky needs to effectively tell its story. Our region’s lack of a unified identity presents challenges to employers who are competing to attract talent from elsewhere, particularly our international companies. meetNKY, BE NKY, and other NKY organizations are partnering with Resonance, a team of designers, strategists, and storytellers, to shape the compelling narrative that surrounds Northern Kentucky and create a livability brand that can be activated to attract talent into our region.
Highlighting the importance of visiting an area prior to choosing where to locate, Northern Kentucky also needs to take advantage of tourism to tell its story to prospective residents, and potentially create social media campaigns aimed at attracting young adults living in nearby cities. Through our business recruitment missions with REDI Cincinnati and Team Kentucky, BE NKY will have an active role in this effort.
Diversify the economy and leverage entrepreneurship to build and retain local wealth
As noted by Economic Leadership, some of the greatest economies are built on the foundation of local companies that started small. Northern Kentucky, as well as the state overall, has a budding entrepreneurial ecosystem, but there is much more that should be done to ensure the region is getting a fair share of new business formations.
Business formation growth in Kentucky was 64.4 percent from January 2020 to September 2023, ranking the state 10th nationally. To help encourage entrepreneurship, projects such as SparkHaus, a developing Covington-based entrepreneurial hub, owned by the Northern Kentucky Port Authority and operated by Blue North, will provide startups with office space and a place to meet with potential investors.
To build on this momentum, Economic Leadership suggests increasing engagement of prospective entrepreneurs, providing regional education and training to determine opportunities for entrepreneurial ecosystem development, and supporting growth in the technology sector with a regional technology leadership council.
Improve collaborative capacity to achieve desired results
Accomplishing these goals for the Northern Kentucky region will require a strong coalition of private sector, legislative, community, and public sector partners to develop policies and solutions to address risks. Adopting a collective impact model for implementation and facilitating an annual meeting of leaders to review, update, and adjust the community strategy will help the region stay aligned and on track with its strategies and goals.
Our region’s future will also be influenced by the Cincinnati MSA and the Commonwealth of Kentucky, so it will be important for NKY’s leaders to work closely with policymakers across the river and in Frankfort.
This analysis from Economic Leadership complements many other reports released by Northern Kentucky growth organizations. The next step for these organizations, including BE NKY, is to work together to engage companies and community partners in working toward the solutions that will empower our region’s future economic success.
BE NKY will dive further into these critical needs at our Q3 Economic Development Briefing on Aug. 22.
Find the full report from Economic Leadership here: https://bit.ly/4437hVn.
About Economic Leadership Economic Leadership is an economic development and strategic planning consultancy enthusiastically helping places, organizations, and leaders be more competitive, more collaborative, and more successful. Economic Leadership’s ability to help clients is enriched by the broad nature of its work and dedication to relationships and success.
Over the last ten years, the consultancy has provided strategic planning, analysis, and counsel to hundreds of clients, including state and local governments, public and private companies, academia, economic development organizations, non-profits and more. Visit www.econleadership.com for more information.
About BE NKY Growth Partnership
BE NKY Growth Partnership, the economic development company for Northern Kentucky, provides businesses with the expertise they need to build opportunity in Boone, Kenton, and Campbell counties. We attract new business and elevate what’s already here to create innovative, forward-thinking, and attractive environments for companies and community success. We serve Northern Kentucky so that our community thrives through the creation of good jobs and a growing and diverse economy. We believe in Opportunity and Prosperity for All Northern Kentuckians. Visit www.BE-NKY.com for more information.
Lee Crume is President/CEO of BE NKY Growth Partnership.
