Photo by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
Rohen Porbanderwala - 1
Rohen Porbanderwala speaks to guests at the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce state-of-the-city luncheon after being introduced as the new chamber board chairman at the Hyatt Regency Birmingham — The Wynfrey Hotel.
The Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce has had women leading its board and at least one Black business leader. This year, it has a chairman who was born in another country.
Rohen Porbanderwala, who was born in Mumbai, India, and emigrated to the United States in 2002, was elected chairman of the board for the Hoover chamber and began his term in January.
Porbanderwala owns the Lake Crest Chevron and nine other convenience stores in Alabama. When he came to the United States in 2002, he first moved to Atlanta. His family had been in the timber and hardware business in India, but he started working in a convenience store in Atlanta, he said.
When he and his wife had their first child in 2004, he decided it was time to make a move to increase their income. Someone told them about the Birmingham-Hoover area, and they had to look it up on a map to figure out where it was, Porbanderwala said.
They ended up buying the Lake Crest Chevron on John Hawkins Parkway and moving to Hoover. Initially, they lived along Lorna Road, but now they have a home in Ross Bridge.
Porbanderwala, who considers himself an entrepreneur and investor, personally manages the convenience store in Lake Crest and another in McCalla, but he also owns two more in Tuscaloosa and six in the Winfield/Guin area, he said.
He got involved with the Hoover chamber in 2007, briefly served as a chamber ambassador and now is in his fourth year on chamber’s board of directors and third year on the chamber’s Government Relations Committee.
He is a 2020 graduate of Leadership Hoover and 2021 graduate of the Small Business Administration Emerging Leaders program. He also just finished his sixth year on the board of the Alabama Merchants Association, serving this past year as vice president, and he has served on the Hoover Board of Zoning Adjustment for about 1½ years. He has been a volunteer for the United Way’s Meals on Wheels program since 2020, working out of the Hoover Senior Center, he said.
Since becoming chairman of the chamber, “it’s been a good ride so far,” Porbanderwala said.
The chamber has retained The Chason Group to help find its next president and CEO after Toni Herrera-Bast resigned in November to take a job with the FBI. Porbanderwala said the chamber’s board hoped to have a new president and CEO by the end of May.
“We’re not trying to get an office manager,” he said. “We want a next-level CEO who knows and understands Hoover — the diversity, the Elevate Hoover project we’re into — understands all the facets of running a chamber.”
Tom Micelotta, whom the board had hired as a consultant to help with its Elevate Hoover visioning and fundraising project, has been doing a phenomenal job as interim president and CEO, Porbanderwala said.
The Elevate Hoover campaign is in its first of five years. The goal is to raise $3 million over five years, and as of early May the chamber was at about 65% of its $600,000 goal for this year, Porbanderwala said.
The board hired a new part-time events coordinator, Jessica Armstrong, a few months ago. The chamber is trying to make itself more available to all businesses by making all events except chamber luncheons free to attend, Porbanderwala said. In the past, non-members were charged to attend events such as Coffee & Contacts and After Hours events, he said.
The board also has tried to re-energize its ambassador program (now with about 25 ambassadors) and is trying to enhance its small business programming through a partnership with the Small Business Administration, he said. To help foster more economic growth, the chamber is hiring a marketing and branding company to rebrand the city and build a more robust website, Porbanderwala said.
This December, the board plans to hold a new event — a black-tie annual meeting and gala to review the past year and present a new slate of officers for the following year.
So far, this year has been productive, with 80 new members joining since January and the retention rate for renewal memberships increasing by 30%, Porbanderwala said. The chamber had 1,075 members as of early May.
