BARBARA B. LANG
PRESIDENT AND CEO
DC CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
Barbara Lang has been president and chief executive officer of the District of Columbia Chamber of Commerce since March 2002. She has complete responsibility for the operations and the strategic direction of the organization – the premier advocate of business in the District of Columbia. The Chamber is an approximate 1700+ member organization that advances the interests and prosperity of its members through advocacy, education, information and business development. Ms. Lang has transformed the organization into the most powerful and respected business group in the region through her aggressive leadership on key public policy business issues and by working diligently on education (Pre-K-12) and workforce development issues and projects, small business/entrepreneurial development initiatives like the Chamber’s signature Executive leadership Development Program (ELDP). Her goal is to have the Chamber pave the way to make the District of Columbia “a better place to work, play, live and of course, do business”. She has developed several initiatives that put the DC Chamber of Commerce on the leading edge of non-traditional programming and non-dues revenue generation. Under Ms. Lang’s leadership, the DC Chamber of Commerce has been ranked the #1 Chamber of Commerce for six consecutive years by the Washington Business Journal, and has truly distinguished itself as the “Voice of Business in the District of Columbia”.
Because of her deep personal commitment to improving the unemployment statistics in the District of Columbia, Ms. Lang was appointed in 2006 as Chair of the Workforce Investment Council. She has successfully made the connection for DC’s business community that reducing the city’s unemployment will result in an improved business climate. In 2009, she created a Workforce Institute as part of the DC Chamber of Commerce Foundation to continue her work focused on the city’s growing industry sectors (financial/banking, hospitality, health and real estate). As a part of this work, in 2009 and again in 2010, the Chamber Foundation took 1,000 high school seniors and young adults through our Financial Scholars Program – Ever-Fi – a three dimensional modular technology program that takes the student on the trading floor of Wall Street and a bank to teach them the fundamentals of financial literacy.
Prior to joining the Chamber, Ms. Lang was the vice president of corporate services and chief procurement officer for Fannie Mae, a publicly traded corporation that provides financial products for low, moderate, and middle income Americans. She was responsible for all of the company’s procurement, real estate and facility operations that supported 5,000 employees in 60 locations in the U.S. with a staff of 300. Ms. Lang had a long career with IBM before joining the Fannie Mae team in 1992. She served in several management positions in finance, administration and product forecasting. Her successful business and management experience spans over three decades with IBM, Fannie Mae and now the DC Chamber of Commerce.
Ms. Lang has been recognized in the community for her business acumen, leadership and community engagement that includes: 2005 – the Women Who Mean Business Award (Washington Business Journal), the National Louis University Women’s Leadership Award; 2006 – Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, University of the District of Columbia Woman of Distinction Award, the Business Leader of the Year (DC Building Industry Association) and recognized by Washingtonian Magazine as one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in Washington; 2007 and 2009 – recognized by Washingtonian Magazine as one of the 150 Most Powerful People in the Washington region. In 2008, Ms. Lang was recognized as a Phenomenal Woman by the Thurgood Marshall Center for Service and Heritage, and also received the Bravo – Women Business Achievement Awards by SmartCEO Magazine. In 2009, Ms. Lang was inducted into the Washington DC “Hall of Fame” and in 2010; she was awarded the Business Award by the Black Women’s Agenda, Inc. in 2011, she was again recognized by Washington Magazine as one of the Most Powerful Women in Washington and also presented with the Leadership Award by the Graduate School, USA.
Ms. Lang serves on the following boards: Trinity University Board of Trustees; Destination DC; Downtown Business Improvement District; the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond (small business and agriculture advisory council); The Eugene & Agnes E. Meyer Foundation; the former Chair of Workforce Investment Council and the former Co-Chair the DC Business Coalition.
Barbara Lang earned a bachelor’s degree in business from Edward Waters College, Jacksonville, Florida; has done some graduate studies at Harvard; is a 1999 graduate of Fannie Mae’s Executive Development Program; and is a graduate of the Class of 2001 of Leadership Washington. She received a Doctors of Laws from Trinity University in May, 2007.
She and her husband, Gerald live in Washington, DC, and have an adult daughter.
