Did You Know This About Greenville, South Carolina?
This Oct. 12-14, the Birmingham Business Alliance (BBA) is headed to Greenville, South Carolina for our annual Leadership Exchange trip.
This experience connects our region’s top business and civic leaders to explore the strategies, partnerships and innovations that have made Greenville one of the Southeast’s most vibrant and competitive cities.
Want to know what sets them a part from the Birmingham region? Keep reading. 
Here's FOUR things that you probably did not know about Greenville, South Carolina...
They have reinvented themselves from a textile manufacturing downtown to a vibrant, walkable downtown.
They have reinvented themselves from a textile manufacturing downtown to a vibrant, walkable downtown. Greenville has transformed its downtown through walkable streetscapes for mixed-use development and adaptive reuse. Like the Birmingham region's Railroad Park, the Switch District and the Theatre District - we know and can learn how Greenville sustains urban growth with public space investments and private incentives.
The upstate region boasts a growing millennial workforce and draws talent from universities.
The upstate region boasts a growing millennial workforce and draws talent from universities. Upstate Greenville draws millennials and young families with affordable living, vibrant culture and jobs. They have developed a system where local universities and workforce programs can tightly align with employer needs.
While the Birmingham region has topped recent lists of cities young professionals are moving to after college, we can always improve upon the collaboration between our employers and local colleges and universities and learn new strategies to deepen these partnerships to boost talent retention.
They are consistently ranked among the fastest-growing economies.
They are consistently ranked among the fastest-growing economies. Greenville strongly nurtures a pro-business climate with targeted industry recruitment and strong export activity. Because of these reasons, among others - Greenville upholds rankings and accolades as one of the nation's fastest-growing metro economy. What does Birmingham have to learn from this?
To improve and accelerate the Birmingham region's growth, we can learn from Greenville on how they align export-orientated industries with international industry recruitment. Because of our similarities in strength in exporting, we can learn how they duplicate export-alignment across industries.
They are a manufacturing powerhouse.
They are a manufacturing powerhouse.Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina is home to BMW's largest plant worldwide, anchoring a dense network of automotive and advanced manufacturing suppliers, plus Michelin's North American HQ.
This ecosystem fuels thousands of high-skill jobs, similarly to how Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, Inc. does in the Birmingham region. Greater Greenville has shown the power of supplier recruitment and workforce partnerships, areas that the Birmingham region could improve upon.
Our Leadership Exchange trip is more than just something to do, it's a movement towards regional collaboration and unification, which is crucial to the growth we all want to see here in the Birmingham Region. Additionally, the presence of BBA investors is strongly encouraged as the collective strength of our region's business community will drive meaningful progress.
If you're reading this, take this as a sign to get registered for Leadership Exchange 2025 and one day wait for your chance to say, "Yeah, I was on that trip that kicked off {insert Birmingham region success story.}