Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau CEO Nancy Carpenter will leave her position when her contract expires March 31, and the CVB board has already formed a search committee to find her replacement.
Board President Liz Terry told The Dispatch the board voted last week to establish a committee, consisting of board members Quinn Brislin, Matt Bogue and Melodie Cunningham, to create a job description for its CEO position and begin advertising for Carpenter’s replacement in early 2024.
“They’ll be getting a job description together and making a decision on where the advertisements will be posted, like newspapers in different areas of the state and possibly the country, but they’re going to make that decision,” Terry said. “At some point, they’ll bring their findings to the entire board, and the board will make a decision on who is the best applicant.”
Carpenter confirmed her impending exit to The Dispatch on Wednesday morning but offered no further comment on the record by press time.
“It’s Nancy’s intention to retire at the end of March,” Terry said. “We thought we’d go on and get the process started. I’m not sure how long it’s going to take, but we just want to be prepared.”
Carpenter has led the CVB and its affiliated nonprofit, the Columbus Cultural Heritage Foundation, since 2011, working mostly under three-year contracts with separate salaries for those roles. However, the board offered her a one-year contract in September 2022 at just a CVB salary, making her foundation work essentially volunteer.
She accepted a six-month extension to that contract in October. Her salary for those six months is $55,278 — which is half the same salary as her previous yearlong contract.
Brislin hopes to present the full CVB board with a draft job description as quickly as its Nov. 28 meeting. The board will determine a salary for the CEO before the position is advertised.
“We really haven’t had a job description out there for the last 14 years, so, we’re kind of starting out from scratch,” Brislin said.
Terry said she is grateful for Carpenter’s many years of service at CVB.
“Nancy has done some great things with the CVB since she’s been CEO,” she said. “Certainly, they are going to be big shoes to fill in replacing her.”
The CVB leads tourism recruitment efforts in Columbus and is funded by revenue from a 2% sales tax on prepared food and beverage sales in the city limits. In Fiscal Year 2023, which ended Sept. 30, that tax generated about $1.3 million for the organization.
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