Pacific Business News: Hawaii Chamber's CEO Sherry Menor: 'I've never looked back.'
May 23, 2026
By Janis Magin
One of Sherry Menor’s many accomplishments during her tenure as CEO of the Chamber of Commerce Hawaii is the creation of Hawaii on the Hill, an event that showcases the state’s businesses in the nation’s capital.
This is the 10th year of Hawaii on the Hill, with 250 people representing 110 Hawaii companies traveling to Washington, D.C. next month to meet with lawmakers and promote business in the Aloha State.
She finds it inspiring that many of those businesses “have been with us since year one.” In addition to paying their own way to Washington, business owners donate products and services for events that include Taste of Hawaii, which drew more than 2,000 people last year.
Menor said the event is also a place to spotlight the chamber’s “Kamaaina Come Home” program to attract residents who are from Hawaii and connect them with employers back in the Islands.
What have you learned about leadership since you’ve been running the chamber?
It’s a lifelong journey. Even though I’ve been 20 years at the chamber, and 13 years as president and CEO, I learn something every day. It’s important as a leader to be flexible, be adaptable and be a leader with guts, because there’s always challenges, but with those challenges, as they say, there’s opportunities. … When I started as CEO and president, I had never led a team before. This was the longest-running job, and I didn’t know anything about running an organization, never managed a budget, never led a team, never report to a board, everything that entails the duties of a president and CEO. But I just felt that I believe in the mission, and if I want to do more to support and advocate for local business community, that I had to take that leap. And have guts. And I’ve never looked back.
What have you learned from supporting other businesses and helping them grow?
First, having a strong team to come up with creative, innovative solutions based on what the business needs are. That’s one. And I believe, with our role as a chamber, it’s an intersection of business, government and community, and the chamber is where all three come together. It’s about collaboration and partnerships, ensuring that we can come up with collective solutions, rather than working in silos. That’s where we have led our organization, our membership, to ensure that we are here to again support and advocate for them and provide the resources so that they can survive and thrive.
What’s the biggest challenge for your members right now?
It’s the changing economic climate. It’s evolving much faster than before, with uncertainty, i.e. the tariffs, federal impacts, natural disasters and what’s going on on the global scale, so all that trickles down to the cost of doing business. That’s been challenging.
What does the future look like for the chamber?
We’re constantly looking at new initiatives that will help support or advocate for our businesses. One of the initiatives that we launched a couple of years ago is the 2030 blueprint, which is an economic action plan. That’s going to be critical and a very important initiative for the chamber, as well as for the state, because it’s a dedicated economic action plan that looks at it from a long-term lens. … We believe the 2030 blueprint, by working collaboratively with government leaders, with our community leaders, business leaders across the Islands, that we can collectively come up with solutions and start moving the needle. And that is so important right now more than ever, because Hawaii is facing a challenging economic climate, we’ve seen how global factors can directly impact our economy here in Hawaii.
See the story here.