Greater MSP chief to speak at awards event

Mike Brown, vice president for marketing and communications for the Greater MSP - better known as the Minneapolis Saint Paul Regional Economic Development Partnership - will be the keynote speaker at The Gazette's Business 380 Excellence Awards banquet Sept. 8 at the Hotel at Kirkwood.

The Greater MSP oversees a 13-county metro statistical area with a $200 billion gross metropolitan product, making it the world's 44th largest economy, according to its website.

Over a six-year period, the area is on track to add 100,000 jobs as of the end this year. Atlantic magazine has deemed it 'the miracle of Minneapolis.”

At the awards ceremony, Brown will talk about how the Greater MSP forged its successful collaborations and built its economic-development strategies.

Before joining the Greater MSP, Brown had founded his own consulting firm, Cottage 8 Partners, and had worked for Target Corp. as well as for advertising and marketing agencies Fallon Worldwide and Campbell-Mithun.

The second-annual Business 380 Excellence Awards banquet will honor 27 Corridor companies and organizations in a dozen fields that include manufacturing, health care, corporate culture and public-private partnerships. Gazette business editor Michael Chevy Castranova and Tiffany O'Donnell, chief operating officer of Iowa Women Lead Change, will serve as co-emcees for the evening.

Tickets and corporate tables can be reserved at thegazette.com/tickets or by calling (319) 398-8345.