What does a head of economic development do?

As the head of economic development, your job is crucial for making a place better economically. You lead efforts to bring in businesses, create jobs, and improve the overall economy. You work on plans, policies, and collaborations with others to boost the local economy. By connecting with businesses and the government, you aim to make the community thrive with better infrastructure and more opportunities. Your role is like a captain steering the ship towards economic growth and making life better for everyone.

An essential perspective often overlooked is the emphasis on Social Equity and Inclusivity in economic development. A Head of Economic Development should actively engage with marginalized groups, promoting diversity and addressing disparities to ensure that the benefits of growth reach all community members. By prioritizing social equity, economic development becomes a catalyst for fostering a more inclusive and resilient local economy, contributing to a sense of belonging for everyone in the community.

Engaging stakeholders cannot be avoided to accomplish any mission. In fact the very purpose of an enterprise is to serve the stakeholders. Periodical events, discussion are needed to know the pulse of the industry, competition, peers and to the beneficiaries. Engaging stakeholders openes up a vast new avenues, help identify the undercurrent, monitor deployment of resources, earn customer loyalty, trust and respect of the society, and be able to advocate policy changes from government. An economy cannot be built from silos but collectively for common good so that the wealth of the nation is equitably distributed among all. I would discourage monopolistic or oligopolistic approach.

Yes, this is what I would prefer to focus on to. Identify problems that are being dragged along for years accumulating losses of man hours and resources. Form an empowered task force, brainstorm with the Board to bring policy changes, modify corporate culture and governance within, up-skill the field formation, pump in fresh resources to implement new pragmatic missions, engage stakeholders, democratize administration, and to influence government to make conducive policy changes and programs for Co-Create values in the system. If the top is clean, proactive and receptive to changes in the economy then the team would find theie task meaningful and work in tandem.

In my role, I've learned firsthand the transformative impact of prioritizing Innovation and Adaptability in economic development. Beyond traditional skills, embracing new technologies and staying open to evolving strategies has been a game-changer. This mindset not only navigates challenges effectively but also propels communities towards heightened competitiveness and sustained growth in the face of a dynamic economic landscape.

This is probably a most important aspect to strengthen the bottom lline and to maintain healthy growth of topline. Upskilling, upgrading knowledge base is an unavoidable strategy to impactfully deploy the resources and to cut costs, prevent attrition, acquire fresh talent, stay ahead of competition and to retain substantial market share.