Mayor Kelly is a lifelong resident of Chattanooga, and was elected the city’s 66th Mayor in April 2021. Growing up in a family that emphasized servant leadership, he still embraces that approach today. After graduating from Columbia University in 1989, he returned to Chattanooga to work at the car dealership that his grandfather, Jim Ayers, founded in 1936. 

Like the city he leads, Mayor Kelly’s roots with the tech industry run surprisingly deep. While growing his car dealership, he launched the first car dealership website in the state of Tennessee in 1991. He went on to found two automotive tech companies, one of which won a national pitch competition at Edmunds.com. 

As mayor, he has worked to grow and diversify Chattanooga’s tech sector, building on the city’s leadership in affordable high-speed municipal broadband. He has supported local broadband utility EPB’s work to make Chattanooga a leader in quantum, including the creation of the first commercially available quantum network in the U.S. 

Mayor Kelly has also worked to bring the benefits of tech and entrepreneurship to city government. He has a long-standing belief that “technology is where strategy and execution intersect to make an organization more responsive and productive.” And he knows that technology, especially AI, has tremendous potential to restore faith in local government. Tech is at the core of Mayor Kelly’s mission to make Chattanooga the best city in America.