Name: Fayetteville Newsmakers: Our Community’s Next Economy
Start: 2026-07-15T14:00:00-04:00
End: 2026-07-15T16:00:00-04:00
Location: Rudolph Jones Student Center

$Fayetteville Newsmakers: Our Community\u2019s Next Economy$

CityView and the News Foundation of Greater Fayetteville present Fayetteville Newsmakers, an editorially led civic dialogue.
About this Event

Join us as local and state leaders sit down with the journalists who cover Greater Fayetteville to examine one of the most important challenges facing our region: Where is our community’s next economy coming from? How do we diversify beyond our retail and military-adjacent economic core into higher-wage, outside-investment industries without jeopardizing our current economy?

Those are the questions at the center of the inaugural Fayetteville Newsmakers, a newsroom-led conversation among leaders, decision-makers, and community voices shaping the region's future.

The inaugural program will open with an on-the-record conversation featuring North Carolina Secretary of Commerce Lee Lilley and CityView Editor-in-Chief Matt Hennie. This high-level dialogue is followed by two panels that convene local and state decision-makers with CityView journalists.

Panel 1: Where We Are—State perspectives paired with local leadership, examining how our community competes when employers, investors, and talent are choosing where to land. Featuring Kirk deViere, Cumberland County Commission Chair; Mitch Colvin, Mayor of Fayetteville; and John Hardin, North Carolina Department of Commerce.

Panel 2: What Comes Next—An innovation ecosystem voice paired with a local entrepreneur, exploring what the next generation of jobs, industries, and opportunity could or should look like here. Featuring Nicholas Perkins, CEO of Fuddruckers and Fayetteville State University alumnus; and Thom Ruhe, President and CEO of NC IDEA.

A key component of the program is a structured roundtable discussion built between the two panels. The most important voices in the room aren't only the ones with microphones. The questions and ideas surfaced at each table will sharpen the second panel and feed the reporting CityView carries forward long after the event ends.

Fayetteville Newsmakers is made possible in part by the News Foundation of Greater Fayetteville, which funds independent local news. If this conversation matters to you, consider supporting the reporting that makes it possible at .