Massachusetts Business Roundtable

Thanks to Amy O'Leary and the team at Strategies for Children for having me, and for your amazing leadership in convening #The930Call for five years. We at the Massachusetts Business Roundtable consider access to affordable, high quality child care economic development policy, workforce development policy, and integral to the state’s long term prosperity. We are happy to be in community with you, the Massachusetts Business Coalition for Early Childhood Education, and the inspiring participants in your daily convening.

Yesterday, the Roundtable team attended the ResilientMass Summit hosted by UMass Boston. The historic statewide gathering focused on building climate resilience and addressing the challenges posed by climate change. The summit was facilitated by UMass Boston Chancellor and Roundtable member Marcelo M Suarez-Orozco. The event was framed around the MAST strategy—Mitigation, Adaptation, and Societal Transformation—designed to create comprehensive climate resilience strategies. Participants had the opportunity to engage in discussions about the impacts of climate change and how best to develop comprehensive climate resilience strategies and solutions. The summit brought together a diverse group of community leaders, researchers, philanthropists, and entrepreneurs. Speakers included, Governor Maura Healey, Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll, Mayor Michelle Wu, UMass President Marty Meehan, Secretary of Housing and Livable Wages Ed Augustus, Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Rebecca L Tepper, Climate Chief Melissa Hoffer, and many other outstanding leaders committed to addressing the climate crisis. It was an exciting day filled with impactful speakers, insightful panels, and inspiring experiences shared by participants. We look forward to continuing this collaboration to drive meaningful change across the Commonwealth!

The MassSkills Coalition kicked off the first session of the Upward Mobility series. Fantastic facilitators, Michael Baldwin, Jr. and Terry Hollingshead, led the discussion on the foundations of career pathing, skills profiles, and skills mapping as key tools to support upward mobility and talent retention. It was a great way to start this series, with valuable peer insights and practical tools to help advance upward mobility. Thank you to all the participants who joined and contributed to the conversation! cc: The MassSkills Coalition Co-Chairs: Secretary of The Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development (EOLWD), Lauren Jones; Tonja Mettlach of Massachusetts Business Roundtable; Chrissy Lynch of Massachusetts AFL-CIO; and Jerry Rubin of Eastern Bank Foundation. And Danielle Wiggins, Zoe Shei, and Lauren Nwagboli.

It was an honor to be invited to testify yesterday before the Joint Committee on Ways and Means hearing on education and local aid at the beautiful University of Massachusetts Amherst campus. The hearing provided the opportunity to advocate for strategies in the Massachusetts Business Roundtable’s policy agenda, including caregiving and early childhood education, developing education pathways for all students, and connecting employers to diverse talent at two- and four-year higher education institutions. “At the Roundtable, we are focused on increasing opportunities to strengthen the connection between education, workforce, and economic development and intentionally connecting educational and workforce opportunities to in-demand jobs. In doing so, we can both grow and diversify the state’s workforce pipeline and strengthen the educational and economic outcomes of young people.” Special thanks to Senator Jo Comerford, Representative Patricia Duffy, and the Commiittee members who received more than seven hours of testimony from stakeholders and advocates from across the state committed to the excellence of the Massachusetts public education system. “Talent is the state’s chief competitive advantage, and one of the primary strategies to address it is to build talent pipelines through education policy and investments, which is why today’s hearing is so important.”

Meet the Member: Susan Fournier! Susan Fournier is the Allen Questrom Professor and Dean at Questrom School of Business, Boston University. A trailblazer in her field, Susan is the first woman to hold the position of Dean at Questrom and its first academic dean in over 40 years. Susan is in her 31st year as a marketing academic, with 20 of those years spent at Questrom, where she has held several leadership roles, including Senior Associate Dean for Faculty & Research and Director of the MBA and PhD Programs. Before joining Questrom, Susan taught at Harvard Business School and Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. Her research has earned her recognition as one of the top 2% of scientific researchers worldwide, with over 36,000 citations on Google Scholar. She has received five major research awards, including the prestigious Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award in Consumer Psychology in 2021. Her influential paper, "Consumers and Their Brands," has been cited over 14,000 times. Susan's current research interests focus on shareholder value creation through branding, consumer-brand relationships, brand risk, and person-brands. In addition to her academic work, she is the Founder, President, and Chairwoman of the Institute for Brands and Brand Relationships (BBR), an international organization advancing branding research and practice. Before joining the academy, Susan gained industry experience as Vice President at Young & Rubicam Advertising and held management and market research roles at Polaroid Corporation and Yankelovich Clancy Shulman. Susan holds a PhD in Marketing from the University of Florida, an MS in Marketing from Penn State University, and a BS in Marketing from the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst. Susan loves the mountains and the ocean and has an inventory of 8 kayaks at the ready to share.

We had a wonderful time at the Massachusetts Business Roundtable Board Meeting yesterday. Many thanks to our guest speakers, Lauren Jones, Secretary of The Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development (EOLWD) and Patrick Tutwiler, PhD, Secretary of Massachusetts Executive Office of Education who shared their insights and efforts to create talent pathways that are both responsive to children, families and workers and align with the economy and employers’ needs. The Roundtable’s Talent Agenda is consistent with many of their priorities to recruit, retain, and develop diverse talent while creating a competitive environment for growth. Secretaries Jones and Tutwiler are key partners, and we are grateful for their leadership in this work. A special thank you to Rebecca Chasen, New England Managing Partner at Deloitte, for hosting us at the beautiful Deloitte office in Winthrop Center and the members who joined us and participated in the discussion. And thanks to Flavio Debarros for the terrific photos! Office of Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey

Thank you to Massachusetts Business Roundtable member Christina Fisher of Amazon for inviting us to tour Amazon’s amazing state of the art facility in North Andover. What an amazing place! From supporting small businesses like Todd from Finer Form, to creating a multilingual workplace that hires and invests in thousands of local residents, Amazon is a key part of the Commonwealth’s business community. It was great to share this experience with JD Chesloff and our biz association colleagues Chris Kealey and Stephanie Swanson of Associated Industries of Massachusetts, Chris Eicher of Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, and Paul Donovan.

Meet the Member: Ethan G.! Ethan Gauvin serves as Google's Head of Government Affairs for the Northeast, where he leads the company’s public policy engagement in the region. Ethan brings a wealth of experience in the public and private sectors to his current role, including leadership positions on political campaigns, several years as director of public affairs for a biotech startup, as well as a stint in venture capital as a graduate school fellow. Ethan also previously worked at Google from 2014-2019 in San Francisco and London, where he primarily dealt with federal and international policy issues. Ethan holds a Master in Public Administration (MPA) from Harvard University and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), both completed in 2022. In his free time, Ethan loves to ski and hike, and is always looking for a great sci-fi novel to read on his next trip! 

We are thrilled to announce Ameresco's ongoing partnership with the City of Brockton to preserve and modernize some of the city's most treasured buildings, including City Hall and the War Memorial Building. Through the exceptional leadership of Mayor Sullivan, these projects are set to positively impact Brockton residents of all ages for generations to come. Learn more here: https://hubs.ly/Q03bJSm20 #Sustainability #EnergyEfficiency #HistoricPreservation #Ameresco #Brockton

Today Governor Healey's Child Care Task announced 31 actionable efforts across the whole of government to deliver affordable, high quality early education for our youngest learners and their families. We're excited to get to work on implementing them! 👪