Chris is the founding President and CEO of the Missouri Partnership, a public-private, non-profit company with offices in St Louis and Kansas City, Missouri.  The organization is charged with marketing Missouri for new business investment and recruiting new corporate expansions to the state.  In 2012, under Chris’s leadership, the Missouri Partnership received the first ever Site Selector guild’s “Excellence in State economic Development” award.

Chris is a winner of the DCI 40 Under 40 award that identifies rising stars in the economic development profession. He joined the Missouri Partnership in 2007 as the public-private, non-profit corporation’s first Chief Executive Officer; in addition to having led the organization through its initial start-up phase, Chris currently directs the Partnership’s efforts to market Missouri for new business investment and recruit new corporate operations to the state.

In this episode, Chris shares his perspective on what it is like to be an economic development professional, the current and future challenges facing the profession, and the role incentives play in structuring capital investment deals.