Channon has been driving innovation, spearheading organizational change, and leading economic expansion and new business development initiatives for over two decades. An accomplished business executive delivering profitable growth in challenging, competitive, and regulated environments, Channon has a diverse
background in numerous industries and functional roles, including serving in leadership in companies large and small, new business startups and nonprofit entities throughout the country. A career focus has been on creating access and opportunity and delivering profitable growth for small business enterprises.
Today, as founder of Intent Energy, LLC, Channon delivers business transition, workforce, and vendor solutions to the energy sector. Channon believes energy innovation is critical to the success of business and a tremendous growth opportunity for companies which can lead the way in deploying next generation energy solutions. Channon also serves as the fractional Executive Director for the Minnesota Chapter of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), equipping directors with relevant content and facilitating meaningful director connections. She is a member of the Ever-Green Energy Board of Directors and the Star Tribune Media Holding Company Board of Directors.
Channon previously served as the Vice President of Economic Development for the St. Paul Area Chamber. In this role, Channon was responsible for business retention, workforce development, land investment, and for guiding Chamber members to increase equity within all aspects of their operations from the boardroom and management to workforce and the vendor partner pool.
A native of the Twin Cities, Channon relocated back home from Chicago, Ill., where she served as a consultant leading transformation at a privately held company, Urban Ministries, Inc. (UMI), as Chief Operating Officer. At UMI, Channon was responsible for leading the organizational strategy to convert its weekly publications from a print format to digital, consumer “bite-sized daily consumption” format. Prior to Chicago, Channon resided in Southwest Ohio where she served as the Vice President of Enterprise Vendor Management for CareSource, one of the largest Medicaid managed care companies in the country. She was tasked with establishing a formalized supply chain program which combined strategic sourcing, vendor risk assessment and mitigation, and the ongoing management of vendor relationships. She also managed the administration of delegated entities to ensure compliance with government and accreditor regulations. Channon’s “claim to fame” while at CareSource was negotiating the contract for the Affordable Care Act IT system which registered the very first applicant for the Healthcare Exchange.
Before joining CareSource, Channon developed and launched a regional supply chain initiative sponsored by The Dayton Foundation and the Dayton Business Committee. Called the Minority Business Partnership (MBP), the initiative created a regional agenda to increase participation of the Greater Dayton minority business community. After three years from start-up, Channon successfully led the merger of the initiative into the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce to become a formalized regional economic development priority. During her tenure with the MBP, Channon galvanized regional business leadership representing a combined spend of more than $4 billion to focus on MBE development and wealth creation and engaged more than 100 minority businesses with the top 30 accounting for combined revenue of over $700 million.
A quick study, with solid business acumen, Channon is adept in assessing new situations, gaining knowledge in new industries and leveraging the insight and skill of the team to determine best strategy and to lead execution of next steps. Channon has a MBA in marketing from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, and a Bachelor of Business Administration in insurance
from Howard University in Washington, D.C.