Who We Are
Board of Directors
Susan Miller Bush
Ms. Miller Bush is a resident of Knoxville, Tennessee, and Appleton, Wisconsin. She currently serves on the Bush Family Senate. Her husband Jay works for Bush Brothers & Company. She previously worked as a Chancery Court Clerk, with The Trust Company, and with Bush Brothers & Company. She currently serves as a Trustee to the Chi Omega Foundation Board of Trustees, having previously served on The National Foundation Scholarship Committee, the Donor Relations Committee, the Pi Chapter New Member Advisory, and as Fraternity Regional Alumnae Director for the Midwest. She began her studies at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and later graduated from The University of Tennessee.
Gerald Coggin
Mr. Coggin worked for Murfreesboro-based National Healthcare Corporation for over 43 years before retiring in 2016 from his role as Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Ancillary Services. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees for his undergraduate alma mater, Lipscomb University, and remains active as a healthcare consultant and co-founder of the Coggin Group. Mr. Coggin is also a graduate of the University of Tennessee, where he received a Master’s in Public Health.
Jim Coppinger
Mr. Coppinger served as Hamilton County Mayor from 2011 until 2022. From 2006 until his mayorship, Mr. Coppinger served as a county commissioner, representing Hixson, Middle Valley, and Lakesite. Before taking public office, he was a Chattanooga firefighter for 28 years and was named fire chief in 1997. He lives in Chattanooga and is a graduate of Hixson High School, where he likes to say he was an average quarterback on a winning team, and a former Chattanooga State and University of Tennessee at Chattanooga student.
Kim Kaegi
Ms. Kaegi is the Founder and Principal of Kaegi Resources, a Nashville-based fundraising firm. She has nearly four decades of fundraising experience in the political, corporate, and not-for-profit arenas. In addition to her work with prominent Tennessee Republicans, Ms. Kaegi worked in Washington, D.C., and has enjoyed partnerships and contracts with all national committee organizations, including the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the Republican Governors Association. She is a graduate of Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana, and has been consistently recognized as one of Nashville’s business, political, and civic power brokers.
Jeff McGruder
Mr. McGruder, Chief Relationship Officer for Citizens Bank, is a proven finance leader with vast experience in capital raising, community investment, and client relationship management. He is an East Nashville native, an Eagle Scout, and a graduate of the University of Tennessee, where he was both a recruiting assistant and a walk-on member of the men’s basketball team. Mr. McGruder has championed the cause of building wealth and access to resources across the black community through several civic and nonprofit leadership roles. He currently serves on the Lipscomb University Board of Trustees and the Board of Directors for KIPP Academy Nashville, and serves as Chairman of the Hustlestrong Foundation and the Nashville Pro-Am Baseball League. He has also been an active member and volunteer with the Williamson County Chamber of Commerce and Junior Achievement. He has a Master’s of Business Administration with a minor in Healthcare Administration from Trevecca Nazarene University.
Mike McWherter
Mr. McWherter is a lawyer and businessman. He was the Democratic nominee for Governor of Tennessee in 2010 and serves as the Chairman of the Board of the Ned R. McWherter Charitable Foundation. Mr. McWherter has served on numerous charity boards over his career and currently operates both a family cattle operation based in Northwest Tennessee as well as three beverage operations based in West Tennessee and Eastern Arkansas. He served on the Jackson Energy Authority Board before 2013, when President Barack Obama nominated him to serve on the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority, with support from Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Bob Corker (R-TN). He attended Vanderbilt University for both his undergraduate as well as his law degree.
Elliott Moore
Ms. Moore is a government relations consultant in the healthcare industry. She was formerly Vice President of Community and Government Relations for Mountain States Health Alliance and President and CEO of the Hospital Alliance of Tennessee. Ms. Moore also serves on several state and federal healthcare advocacy organizations. In Northeast Tennessee, Ms. Moore chaired the capital campaign for the Bristol YWCA and served as Chair of the Bristol YMCA. In addition, Ms. Moore has served on the boards of Frontier Health, the Sullivan County Children’s Advocacy Center, Appalachia Project Access, and the Bristol Chamber of Commerce. She currently serves on the University of Tennessee Board of Visitors for the College of Social Work, the Emory and Henry College Board of Trustees, the Development Council of the East Tennessee State University College of Nursing, and the Board of Directors for Healing Hands Health. Elliott is the widow of the late Carl Moore, a co-founder of Bristol Motor Speedway who led Democrats as Majority Leader of the Tennessee State Senate.
Jim Seabury
Mr. Seabury serves as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Enterprise Electric, LLC d/b/a Enterprise Solutions, an electrical engineering and construction merit shop that specializes in designing and constructing electrical systems for institutional, commercial, industrial, and service projects of all types and sizes. He has served on the Board of Directors for the Nashville Symphony and the Board of Directors Advisory Council for the Middle Tennessee American Heart Association. He is a graduate of Centre College and Vanderbilt University.
Susan Simons
Ms. Simons is known for her philanthropic efforts in the arts and healthcare sectors and her nonprofit service throughout the Nashville community. A graduate of Leadership Nashville, Ms. Simons has served on many of the most respected nonprofit boards in the city, including Alive Hospice, the Center for Nonprofit Management, Cheekwood, The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, and the Frist Art Museum, among many others. Under Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander, she served as both the Commissioner of General Services and as Chairman of the Alcoholic Beverage Commission. In 2021, alongside her husband, Ms. Simons was awarded the Joe Kraft Humanitarian Award in recognition of her more than five decades of service to the Nashville community. She is a graduate of Wellesley College.
Jim Tracy
Mr. Tracy is a Senior Advisor to the Department of Commerce and Insurance. He most recently served as State Director for USDA Rural Development in Tennessee. Mr. Tracy’s list of public service spans decades – having previously served as a State Senator, Bedford County Board of Education member, President of the Shelbyville-Bedford County Chamber of Commerce, founding member of the Bedford County Economic Development and Tourism Committee, and Chairman of the Tennessee Leadership Council of the National Federation of Independent Business. For more than 20 years, he owned and operated his own insurance company, where he sold all lines of insurance. Mr. Tracy is a graduate of the University of Tennessee at Martin with a degree in Agriculture Education.
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Chloe Akers
Prior to founding The Best of Tennessee, Chloe was a successful criminal defense attorney. Beginning her career with the Defender Association of Philadelphia, she later worked as a state and federal public defender in Milwaukee, Seattle, and in her hometown of Knoxville before transitioning into private practice in 2019. In June of 2022, her career took an unexpected turn. Understanding the impact of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, Chloe made a thought-provoking Instagram video describing the legal realities of Tennessee’s law on abortion. She thought a handful of friends would watch, but within a week, the video was viewed by more than 2 million people. Chloe’s ability to separate ideology from frank, factual analysis soon made her a sought-after public speaker on the topic.
Along with a group of likeminded concerned citizens, Chloe launched The Liminial Plan, an organization designed to promote centrist policy solutions to several divisive issues. However, she soon realized that no amount of issue advocacy would move the needle without changing the incentives policymakers face. As long as most political competition occurs in the primaries and only a small proportion of the overall electorate votes in them, elected leaders will largely cater to the priorities of activists and ideologues rather than the concerns of the “middle majority” of Tennessee voters. Building on what The Liminal Plan started, the organization grew into The Best of Tennessee.
A fifth-generation East Tennessean, Chloe is deeply committed to issues of representation and fairness within our government institutions. In her new role, she uses the skills she honed as a trial lawyer, taking a diligent, patient, and detail-oriented approach to finding rational solutions to complex challenges.
She received her undergraduate degree from Cornell University in 2005 and her law degree from The University of Tennessee College of Law, where she graduated with honors in 2008. Chloe currently lives in Nashville with her rescue dog, Norris.
