Chamber Annual Dinner & Powderhouse Awards

You are cordially invited to the Somerville Chamber of Commerce's 77th Anniversary  Annual Dinner & Awards (Business Casual).

The Dinner & Awards are Co-sponsored by Bunker Hill Community College and Verizon with keynote address by Tufts University President Sunil Kumar and featuring the Fitzgerald Lifetime Achievement Award and Powderhouse Awards for Excellence. 

Tufts University President Sunil Kumar is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at the Somerville Chamber’s Annual Dinner and Awards.

Dr. Kumar was a professor and senior associate dean for academic affairs, overseeing the MBA program at Stanford Graduate School of Business.  He served as dean of the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, where he also was a professor of operations management. In 2016, he became provost of Johns Hopkins University.  On July 1, 2023 he became the 14th President of Tufts University.

Dr. Kumar, whose father was a police officer, was born and raised in India, graduating in 1990 with a bachelor’s in engineering from Mangalore University. He received a master’s degree in 1992 in computer science and automation from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1996.

The Chamber annual dinner is the foremost gathering of local business, civic, and community leaders. The John W. Fitzgerald Lifetime Achievement Award and Powderhouse Awards for business and economic excellence are presented at the dinner.  The Chamber is pleased to have Bunker Hill Community College and Verizon as major co-sponsors.    

The reception will begin at 5:30 p.m., followed by dinner at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, November 30th at the Holiday Inn, 30 Washington Street. Tickets are: $125 per person for Chamber members, $1000 per table of eight guests. Non-member tickets are $175 per person, or $1400 for a table of eight guests.