A new job for Pete Levi

Peter Levi, who retires Dec. 31 as president of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, will join the Kansas City law firm of Polsinelli Shughart as of Jan. 1.

Levi will be a shareholder and leader of the firm’s public policy practice group.

He holds a law degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and has kept his law license active while serving for the last 19 years as the chamber’s top administrative
officer.

Before joining the chamber he was executive director of the Mid-America Regional Council.

In law school, Levi was a classmate of Jim Polsinelli, one of the law firm’s founders. After Levi announced his intent to retire from the chamber, he said, the possibility of joining the firm arose.

“I never said I wanted to retire to the Florida beach,” Levi said in an interview earlier this week. “I said I was interested in being active in the community and doing something intellectually challenging.”

Discussions continued “over three or four months,” Levi said, before the new job was finalized.

W. Russell Welsh, Polsinelli Shughart’s CEO, said Levi’s expertise in federal, state and local policy issues will be an asset for the firm, which has 470 lawyers and a total staff of just under 1,000.

Levi chose to delay public announcement of his new position until today so as not to interfere with the chamber’s annual meeting,
which was held Tuesday night.