Re-energizing and Strengthening Neighborhood Commercial Districts

Date and Time

Tuesday May 12, 2026
5:30 PM - 7:30 PM CDT

Location

IN PERSON

US Bank, Cosmopolitan Branch,

801 N. Clark St. Chicago, IL

(corner of Clark & Chicago Ave.)

Fees/Admission

Free

Website

SCORE Registration

Contact Information

Lauren Barker
Send Email

Description

Main Street America has been helping strengthen and re-energizing downtown and neighborhood commercial districts for over 45 years. It has helped started 181,000 new businesses and create 815,000 new jobs.

Join our special guest speaker, Matthew Wagner, Ph.D., Chief Innovation Officer of Main Street America, for a discussion of small businesses' role in advancing shared prosperity, creating resilient economies, and improving quality of life.

Wagner will address the forces of unprecedented disruption facing small businesses and neighborhoods today, resulting from macro shifts in technology, society, and the economy. Success in this new landscape demands more than traditional solutions. It requires creativity, agility, and adaptability.

This session explores the forces reshaping our communities and small businesses, and the strategic shifts in how we think and work that will determine which Main Street businesses merely survive, and which ones truly thrive.

This special presentation is brought to you by SCORE Chicago with the support of US Bank.

Featured Guest Speaker

Matthew Wagner, Ph.D.

Chief Innovation Officer

Main Street America

Matthew Wagner, Ph.D. serves as Chief Innovation Officer of Main Street America. In this role, he is responsible for leading the Innovation Team, focused on internal and external research, new business support, and piloting, testing, and launching new ideas, tools, and technologies.

Prior to his work at Main Street America, Dr. Wagner had a dual role of Director, Global Community Affairs, and President of Johnson Redevelopment Corporation at SC Johnson, a $10 billion global consumer products company (Glade, Raid, Windex, Ziploc, etc.). Since 2011, he had international responsibilities driving the company’s $35 million philanthropy strategy in sustainability and workforce/economic development areas.

Andrew Clarke, Certified Business Mentor, SCORE Chicago

Andrew Clarke has been a mentor with SCORE Chicago for two years.

He is also Lead Consultant and President & Founder of Ground Floor Partners. In this capacity, he has advised hundreds of businesses on business strategy, marketing, operations, acquisitions, partnerships, organizational restructuring, change management, and other issues.

He has worked with companies in a wide variety of industry verticals, including energy and environment, medical equipment, biomedical labs, healthcare services, advertising, technology and telecommunications, finance, residential and commercial real estate, insurance, retail, food service, music/entertainment. He has also worked with universities and nonprofits.

From 1979 to 1994, Andrew was a scientist and engineer, working in a variety of technical and management positions in academia and industry. Andrew holds advanced degrees from University of Rochester, University of California at San Diego, and University of Wisconsin.