ST. GEORGE — Earlier this month, St. George Area Chamber of Commerce welcomed Shawn Christensen to serve as president and CEO of the professional service nonprofit organization. He officially started his stint Sept. 2 and said his main passion is to help businesses grow.
Coming with experience from multiple international business companies and with 24-plus years of experience in sales, Christensen said he is looking forward to keeping the business-friendly economy of St. George rising.
With the upcoming opportunity to keep the city rising in business success, he extended an invitation to all involved in business to participate in this year’s annual event by enrolling now for the St. George Area Chamber of Commerce’s Rise Summit.
Considered the biggest business conference in Southern Utah for the year, the event features several keynote speakers and master class presenters and will begin Friday at 8 a.m. at the Dixie Convention Center.
During his time working at the World Trade Center Utah, Christensen said he focused on helping businesses and people with “amazing” services expand to an international customer base. His work has been centered in Southern Utah, where he has been involved with the local chambers of commerce, especially St. George’s. The World Trade Center is a worldwide organization found in over 100 countries and is mostly known for the World Trade Centers in New York, New York, and Las Vegas, Nevada.
“My passion lies in small business and people,” Christensen said.
With the experience helping small businesses to go global, he now brings his expertise to help local businesses find the success they need.
“That is my favorite part is getting to know people and building relationships and seeing how we can plug in and help out,” Christensen said.
Raised as a native of Sandy, Utah, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Utah. Shortly after graduating, Christensen worked at the no-longer named Delta Center (Vivint Arena), where he met his wife in the 1990s.
In 2005, he was recruited by a big company, Hearst Communications, in Buffalo, New York, and moved with his family to the eastern United States.
“Really nice people, very similar to Utah, just kind and really, really neat people,” Christensen said of Buffalo. “The shock was the weather, cold, gray, snowed. The summers were gorgeous – really green, but really short.”
Working for the newspaper division in advertisements and sales, he was in Buffalo for 10 years and then headed to Houston, Texas for four years.
In 2018, after taking a job with a software company, he had the opportunity to move closer to home in Utah. The software company, Clearview Social, helps businesses perform social media tasks through their programs and apps and has two headquarters in Buffalo and Salt Lake City.
“We always loved St. George, and when we lived in Northern Utah, we would vacation down here until we moved away,” Christensen said. “Well, we had some friends move here and told us, ‘Guys, it is awesome. If you can get to St. George, you ought to come.'”
Clearview Social was sold to another company, which prompted Christensen to move to St. George where he says he’s “loving it.” Proud of being a Utah native, he highlighted the things that many consider the best about Utah, from landscapes to culture to people and sports.
“I am a graduate of Utah and a big Utah fan,” he said. “Much to my dismay, my daughter attends BYU, and I have a daughter at Utah Tech, so you can imagine our Saturdays.”
Christensen talked about the benefits of living in the St. George area and how the heat is wonderful.
“You can’t shovel sunshine,” Christensen said.
Highlighting the fast growth in the city, Christensen said he’s seeing many businesses, especially small ones, succeeding due to the present culture of support for small businesses, along with an abundance of street markets, vending opportunities and handmade products.
“With growth, I think the hardest thing to face is continued collaboration,” he said. “When growth is happening so quickly, it is not so easy to bring others in to help with the decisions. The local cities have done a good job addressing our continued growth, but I think our biggest opportunity now is to improve our collaboration.”
With this focus on collaboration in mind, Christensen said Southern Utahns are blessed with amazing resources and talented people.
“We got super smart people here, who are really really good at what they do,” he said, “and my goal here at the chamber is to utilize those people to help us all do our very best.”
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