Industry Leaders Circle

The Industry Leaders Circle (ILC) is the business bureau of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative. Launched in 2025, the ILC operates on the belief that the best results grow out of robust dialogue, collaboration, and engagement between local government and the private sector. The ILC is the natural place for any business that shares the Cities Initiative’s values of responsible freshwater use, community resilience, and economic transformation, and that wants to work with us to implement our vision of the Fresh Coast Economic Corridor.

Led by representatives from diverse sectors including engineering, manufacturing, and water technology, the ILC fosters long-term, sustained engagement between businesses and Cities Initiative member communities. Through quarterly meetings, in-person roundtables, deliverable reports, and other activities, the ILC provides an open, accessible forum for mayors and businesspeople to listen, learn, and provide one another with crucial feedback, insight, and support. By fulfilling twin functions as a brain trust and advisory council for the implementation of the Cities Initiative’s Economic Transformation Action Plan, the members of the Industry Leaders Circle play an active, valuable role in shaping the future of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River Region, home to over 40 million people, the world’s third-largest economy, and 21% of the world’s surface fresh water.

Join the Industry Leaders Circle

When you join the Industry Leaders Circle, you signal yourself and your brand as leaders in the fields of corporate responsibility, economic development, and freshwater stewardship to a multinational audience of more than 425 mayors, executives, and other elected leaders. Membership comes at a price point of $7,500 per year (denominated in the currency of the country in which your business is registered), and comes with the following benefits over the course of a twelve-month period:

Invitation to send participants to all four (4) regular, quarterly ILC meetings held over the course of year
Two (2) complimentary registrations to the Cities Initiative’s Annual Conference
Two (2) complimentary invitations to an exclusive session at the Annual Conference
One (1) complimentary invitation to every regional conference organized by the Cities Initiative
Visual recognition on the Cities Initiative website
Visual and verbal recognition in the Cities Initiative’s newsletter Making Waves, which reaches thousands of stakeholders and elected officials every month across the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence
One (1) invitation to the annual Trade Roundtable at Great Lakes Day in Washington, D.C.
Opportunity to submit content to the ILC’s Annual Report, highlighting a successful public-private partnership

It would be our pleasure to welcome you and your business to the Industry Leaders Circle. To learn more about the ILC and the opportunities that come with membership, please contact Jack Knizhnik, Development Coordinator at the Cities Initiative, at jknizhnik@glslcities.org.