First elected in 2008, Elise Partin is a nonpartisan leader who holds the distinction of being the first female to serve in the office of Mayor in Cayce, South Carolina, a historic city across the Congaree River from the state capital of Columbia. She is the longest serving mayor in the Midlands Region.
A leader on numerous boards including the Joseph P. Riley, Jr. Center for Livable Communities, she has been recognized for her meaningful, measurable track record of success, her commonsense leadership that has created a cleaner, safer, healthier Cayce, and championing real solutions for the hardworking taxpaying families of Cayce, creating more economic freedom and peace of mind. Under her leadership, Cayce has been recognized as one of the top 10 most tax-friendly places to retire in South Carolina and as the number one city in S.C. for recent graduates and millennials.
Mayor Partin is on the advisory team for the Riley Mayors Design Fellows. She is a past president of the Municipal Association of South Carolina and serves on the board of the River Alliance. She is on the Advisory Board of DemocraShe, a nonpartisan nonprofit providing evidence-based resiliency skills, leadership & civic engagement to flood our future with diverse, compassionate & confident women leaders in every sector. Mayor Partin is on the bipartisan S.C. Advisory Committee for the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, a Speaker with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and was invited to join the 2025 Inaugural Class of the SC Hunt State Policy Fellows. She is Vice Chair of the Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee with the National League of Cities.
In 2015, to benefit her city, she was invited to participate in the prestigious and selective Mayors Institute for City Design (MICD), which is a collaboration of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Institute of Architects. In 2021, she was the first US Mayor accepted into the MICD alumni opportunity which provided further no cost benefits for her City.
A Leadership Columbia graduate, Mayor Elise Partin served as president of both the Leadership Columbia Board and the Leadership Columbia Alumni Association Board. She is a Furman University Riley Institute Diversity Leaders Initiative Fellow, a graduate of Leadership South Carolina and was the first female president of the Columbia Museum of Art Contemporaries, the museum’s membership organization for young professionals.
As her wide range of service demonstrates, Mayor Partin is not only keenly interested in the healthy governance of the City of Cayce but is fully committed to building the strong regional partnerships necessary to move the entire Midlands region forward. To that end, she partnered with her former neighboring Mayor from Columbia, S.C. and played a key leadership role in creating the Midlands Mayors Forum, focused on stronger collaborations, and establishing a unified voice for impact. She believes so deeply in the need for all of us to get involved in elected office that she gave a resounding call in her 2015 TEDx ColumbiaSC talk. She stepped back on the TEDx stage in 2026 to clarify, providing the evidenced base answer to what can benefit cities and towns around the world. She shares encouragement, insights and a roadmap for women wanting to improve their communities through her Substack: ElectedFe by Elise Partin.
Outside of her mayoral duties, Elise Partin is faculty with The Buckley School of Public Speaking. She is Adjunct Faculty at the University of South Carolina and an Executive Coach with Mackey Strategies, with a special focus on empowering women leaders. She holds a Master of Public Health and is a member of the Delta Omega, Mu Chapter, honorary public health society. She is married and has two children.
In recognition of her accomplishments and her many contributions, Mayor Partin was named as one of Columbia Business Monthly’s Outstanding Women of Influence in 2011, nominated as a recipient of the Palmetto Center for Women’s TWIN Award in 2012, and was Honored as a Woman of Distinction by Girl Scouts of South Carolina - Mountains to Midlands in 2013. In 2014 she was named as one of Southeast Small Business Magazine’s “Top Women of Influence.” She has been recognized in the Free Times’ “Fifty People Who Get Things Done in the Capital City” and Power 50 for many years, as well as one of Columbia Business Monthly’s “50 Most Influential”. In 2019, she was honored as the Public Servant of the Year by the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce. In 2020 she was named a Women of Influence by the Columbia Regional Business Report. Capital City/Lake Murray Country recognized her as a Tourism Advocate in 2021 and she was nominated to the International Women’s Forum, an invitation-only network of the most accomplished women in the world. In 2022, AIA Columbia conferred to her the Presidential Citation Award in recognition of enhancing local community design. Palmetto Pride recognized her as a 2023 SC Leader against Litter. In 2024, she was recognized as the Best Elected Official in Lexington County among all the SC Senators, Representatives, County Council, School Board and City elected officials. She received national recognition with the Women in Municipal Government Leadership Award in 2025 from the National League of Cities.
