Overview of Lead21
Mission
Lead21 is an influential political organization formed by entrepreneurial business leaders, for entrepreneurial business leaders. We provide a platform for the newest generation of business leaders to participate in politics and government. With nearly 500 members and growing rapidly, we are uniquely positioned as one of the largest forces of the innovation economy.
Our mission is unique, powerful, and simple: to be entrepreneurial in business and entrepreneurial in government.
The Challenge
Passive interest in politics is the greatest threat to the preservation and growth of economic power through America’s unique entrepreneurial and innovative culture.
Everything changes and evolves in time. So has the relationship between government, politics and business. But another thing that’s changed is that the nation’s best educated, most gifted generation of business leaders, working in the world’s most powerful economy and fastest moving industries, are not engaged in the process. Fewer of them are voting. Even fewer are involved in politics. Few recognize the political, legislative and governmental agenda that dramatically effect their businesses, careers and industries until they’re voted into law or appear on CNN.
Young leaders today are not simply inclined to enroll and believe. They thrive on challenge. The challenge of identifying new opportunities. The challenge of starting and growing new businesses. The challenge of identifying solutions to complicated technological, market, information and political problems. The challenge of driving innovation in internationally competitive fields, like high tech, automotive, healthcare, bio- and nano-technology, among others. The challenge of leaving their own unique imprint on the world just as previous generations have done before them.
The greatest economic challenge to this generation is that in today’s highly globalized economy with rising competition on multiple continents, the stakes are high and the consequence of passive interest is debilitating.
Business and Government Relationships
Lead21 is aggressively redefining this relationship between business and government. By recruiting rising professionals and industry leaders, we are working to forge a new agenda through direct, hands-on, active participation in government and politics. We focus on action and results, leveraging the entrepreneurial values of our membership to effect policy, inform, educate and encourage dialog rather than sitting on the sidelines.
Lead21 staffs congressional, government, party and think tank advisory boards and committees, providing direct access to the research, industry and business expertise of our members — on-the-ground leaders who directly build, shape and drive emerging industries. We facilitate meetings with military, state and federal government officials and members of key lobbies to foster bi-directional education and mission-critical information exchange. We sponsor receptions, private working dinners, and a broad range of programs with key government officials and business leaders — from governors and congressmen to senior administration and blue chip executives. Our programs give our members a wide range of perspectives on the ways in which business effects government, and in which government benefits from strong relationships with the leadership of the innovation economy—the most powerful and fastest growing economic engine in the world, and a cornerstone of U.S. competitiveness and economic growth.
Lead21 is a portal between two previously loosely connected universes through which our members from a broad range of powerful industries gain access to unique opportunities to effect real and meaningful change in government. We are a conduit for joining government and political leaders with the top talent and expertise of one of the most powerful economic forces in the world—the innovation economy.
Five years old and based in the San Francisco Bay Area at the heart of the world’s 7th largest economy, Lead21 is the most unique, powerful and fastest growing political organization comprised entirely of the country’s 21st century leaders. Our conservative-leaning members are predominantly moderate Republicans, with a healthy share of like-minded Libertarians, Independents and others. While there is no political litmus test for membership, Lead21 members all believe in the power of innovation and entrepreneurship, working with our nation’s leadership to achieve more efficient government, fewer regulations, lower taxes and stronger public policy that enhances American competitiveness, growth and prosperity.