Bree Wilson Named a NextGen Leader!
Everything rises and falls on leadership.
That's not just a saying around City Leadership. It's the whole reason we exist. We believe Memphis's future gets built by the leaders who choose to stay, grow, and pour into this city. And every once in a while, we get to watch that belief play out in real time.
This week, the Greater Memphis Chamber announced its 2026 NextGen Award Winners- ten honorees under 40 who are shaping the future of Memphis business, civic life, and our city's fast-growing innovation economy.
One of them is our own Bree Wilson.
Bree leads Teach901 here at City Leadership, and if you've spent any time around her, you already know why she made this list. She moved to Memphis from Philadelphia back in 2014 to teach with Teach For America, a two-year commitment that turned into more than a decade in Memphis classrooms.
She's been our Teach901 Director since October 2024, and she brings that classroom experience to the work, recruiting and retaining teachers for our partner schools, spotlighting the educators doing great things in Memphis, and making sure every teacher in this city gets the support and recognition they deserve.
Bree came to Memphis as a transplant and chose to stay. She built her community here through TFA friendships that are still her closest friends today, through her South Main neighborhood, through more than ten years of showing up for Memphis kids. This city is home to her now, and she pours that back into every teacher she recruits and every classroom she fights for.
This recognition isn't just about Bree. It's a reflection of the educators she's helping recruit and retain across our city's classrooms. We couldn't be prouder to call her a teammate.
And Bree isn't carrying this alone.
She's part of a cohort of ten leaders this year, and honestly, the full list is a snapshot of what's happening in Memphis right now:
Banking. Logistics. Real estate. Education. Economic development, etc. Ten different lanes, one shared thread. These are the people choosing to build their careers, and their lives, here in Memphis. That's precisely what we mean when we say leadership rises and falls on the people who show up for it. Memphis doesn't grow because of one industry or one institution. It grows because leaders across every sector decide this city is worth investing in.
That's the same belief that built Choose901, Teach901, Serve901, Choose901 Alumni, and Give901. We don't just need leaders in one lane. We need them everywhere- in classrooms and in boardrooms and in Fortune 500 offices. And we need them behind the counter at a neighborhood shop. We need them running nonprofits, and we need them coaching Little League- every kind of leadership builds this city.
Congratulations to all ten of this year's honorees for proving that out.
While we're on the subject of leadership investment, we've got to say thank you.
The Hyde Family Foundation has been a steady partner behind Teach901, and their investment made it possible for us to bring on a full-time leader for the program. The results speak for themselves: back-to-back years of over 300 educator placements in Memphis classrooms. That's hundreds of teachers standing in front of Memphis kids because a foundation believed in leadership development enough to fund it. We don't take that kind of partnership lightly.
Leadership rises and falls on people who show up for it- Bree showing up for teachers, this whole NextGen class showing up for their industries, Hyde showing up for Teach901's work, and all of us showing up for Memphis.
Congratulations, Bree. We're just getting started.
