Six months after the head of Silicon Valley’s largest chamber of commerce resigned in the wake of a racist campaign ad posted by the group, the Silicon Valley Organization has named its new president.
Derrick Seaver, chief of staff for Santa Clara County Supervisor Susan Ellenberg, has been unanimously chosen by the group’s search committee and approved by its executive committee to lead the organization moving forward.
“I am deeply humbled by this opportunity to serve my dynamically diverse community and rebuild the bridges between our businesses and the people of this great Valley,” Seaver said in a news release Tuesday. “It is this area’s entrepreneurship that in my eyes offers an equitable road to economic mobility for all of our residents and it is time to refocus on this promise.”
This new role as CEO will mark Seaver’s second time working for the SVO, which was previously known as the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce. He served as the organization’s director of public policy from 2013 to 2017 and also as director of policy and operations for the San Jose Downtown Association.
“With his business and community service background, Derrick Seaver is the right person to lead the SVO forward, strengthening the positive leadership, commitment, and engagement of the organization,” SVO board chair Glenn Perkins said in a press release.
Seaver will immediatly replace interim CEO Bob Linscheid who stepped into the role in December 2020 — about a month after the organization’s previous leader, Matt Mahood, resigned as part of the fallout from a political campaign ad widely denounced as racist. Mahood served as president and CEO of the SVO for 13 years.
The image that led to the unprecedented response from the SVO was posted in late October as part of an attack ad against a San Jose city council candidate who supported police reform. The black-and-white image featured a group of Black men in front of a cloud of tear gas overlain with the words: “Do you really want to sign onto this?”
Although the SVO quickly apologized and launched diversity training programs for staff and members, dozens of influential companies dropped their SVO board seats and many more nonprofit groups and businesses rescinded their SVO memberships.
As a result, the SVO dissolved its political action committee — the organization’s campaign arm that supported business-friendly candidates and one of two of the most influential factions during election season in the South Bay.
Following Mahood’s departure, the SVO scrubbed the names of all employees, board members and leadership from its website. Those web pages still cannot be found on the site.
Seaver will be tasked with guiding the embattled organization, which represents about 1,200 business members throughout the greater Silicon Valley that employ 300,000 people, through a period of racial reckoning while reimagining its role in the region’s new political landscape.
“Anyone who has had the good fortune of working with Derrick knows he is committed to the community he serves and will work with everyone to meet their needs,” Santa Clara County District Supervisor Susan Ellenberg said in the news release. “I can think of no better leader, ally or friend to repair and reinforce the integral bridges between our business community and the people who call this place home.”
