Hoskins to exit Fairfax EDA after six-year tenure

After more than six years leading the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority, Victor Hoskins plans to leave his post as president and CEO to return to the private sector, according to an announcement Monday.

FCEDA credits Hoskins with helping to secure nearly 64,000 jobs. During his tenure, the county’s gross domestic product grew by $47 billion, to $177 billion.

“Victor Hoskins has been an exceptional economic leader for Fairfax County and a strategic force for growth during some of the most competitive and complex times in recent history,” James Quigley, chair of the FCEDA Commission, said in a statement. “Under his leadership, FCEDA secured some of the world’s most innovative companies, ignited meaningful job creation, strengthened key industries and cemented Fairfax County’s place as a global competitor.”

Six years is the longest Hoskins has kept a position. That he stayed put so long, Hoskins said Monday, “says a lot about what I thought about the people of Fairfax.” By the end of 2026, he plans to move to a company where he’ll do advisory work with family investment offices on large-scale public-private investments.

The FCEDA commission will soon launch a search for the organization’s next president and CEO and expects to announce a successor later this year.

Legacy

Hoskins can count a number of successes in his time at FCEDA. Under his leadership, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors funded the authority’s talent initiative to grow workforce competitiveness across Northern Virginia. This program engaged more than 17,000 employers and connected more than half a million job seekers to jobs, according to a news release.

During his tenure, companies such as Microsoft, Google, Meta and Blue Origin announced new locations and expansions in the county. Among the successes: In 2022, Alarm.com, a cloud-based platform for home and business security, announced plans to invest $2.6 million to expand its technology research and development division, creating 180 jobs.

For Hoskins, who grew up poor in Chicago, leading the FCEDA has been about helping people. By saving a job, he saved a household, he said.

“That’s how I talk to my people,” Hoskins said. “When I talk to them about their work, I say, ‘Stop focusing so much on I got to get this deal. Focus on what the deal is going to do for our community.'”

It hasn’t been all celebrations. Over the last year, FCEDA tracked the thousands of federal employees who were let go as well as layoffs at federal contractors as the Trump administration worked to cut the federal payroll and claw back billions in federal contracts. Hoskins led the authority’s efforts to connect laid off federal workers with job openings.

The grimness of the layoffs didn’t hasten his departure. “I’ve been through worse,” Hoskins said. “Hey, I went through COVID. Come on. I had to shut down the office, and everybody was on a screen … I like the challenge. Me? I love it when it’s tough.”

A proponent of regional collaboration, Hoskins formed the Northern Virginia Economic Development Alliance with neighboring localities in 2019. Other leaders didn’t embrace the idea right away. They would say, “‘No one has every cooperated in Northern Virginia. Why start now?,'” recalled Hoskins, who served as director of Arlington Economic Development from 2015 to 2019 and helped lead the successful effort to secure Amazon.com’s HQ2 East Coast headquarters.

“I kept going back to them. I’m going like, ‘Well, remember what happened when we did Amazon HQ2? Remember when we worked together? It was four jurisdictions working together on Amazon HQ2, and we got it. We got the biggest deal in the world. Are you kidding me? Look what happens when we work together.'”

Today, Hoskins also serves as vice chair of Connected DMV, which works to drive improvements to social, digital and physical infrastructure across Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia.

The organization operates the Quantum World Congress, an annual event launched in 2022 to gather members of the quantum ecosystem. It attracts more than 1,500 people from 31 countries, according to FCEDA. Connected DMV also organizes spaceNext, a conference regarding the new space economy that was held last week in Tysons. Hoskins was still riding high from the event Monday. Both events are near Hoskins’ heart.

“If I could push a button and start all over, I’d go headlong into space,” Hoskins said. “I’d become an aerospace engineer, and I would work on rockets. I would work on large structures in space. To me, that’s the new real estate.”

Past and future

Earlier in his career, Hoskins was deputy mayor for planning and development in Washington, D.C.

As vice president of Washington, D.C.-based Quadel Consulting, Hoskins led the delivery of affordable housing consulting and training services. His resume also includes a stint as lead director of mid-Atlantic markets for Fannie Mae and three years spent as cabinet secretary of Maryland’s Department of Housing and Community Development.

He earned his bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College and a master’s degree in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In 2023, Hoskins received a presidential lifetime achievement award from then-President Joe Biden. The award honored Hoskins for his “lifelong commitment to building a stronger nation through volunteer service.”

Hoskins and his wife, Diane, gave $50,000 to George Mason University in 2024. This year, he began his term as chair of the board for the Capital Area Food Bank. The work is important to him, Hoskins said, because he has experienced food insecurity.

“I know what that’s like, so I want to change that,” he said.

Regarding his future advisory job, Hoskins said, “My work will be in a Greater Washington region. It’ll stretch from projects in Baltimore all the way down through Northern Virginia, maybe one or two in Richmond. We’ll see.”

Hoskins is excited about the job because he’s worked in both the private and public sectors, and he believes he can help one side see the other’s point of view. “When you’re on both sides of the table, you do really develop a different perspective,” Hoskins said.

In his next chapter, Hoskins is also eager to invest in some real estate projects, something he put off as CEO of FCEDA to avoid the appearance of conflict. “January 1, next year, I’m at it,” Hoskins said.

He will continue to live in Washington, D.C., where he’s lived for about 15 years. “My wife walks to work,” he said. “There was no changing that.”