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SECRETARY OF COMMERCE AND TRADE, COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, RICHMOND
SECRETARY OF COMMERCE AND TRADE, COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, RICHMOND
Virginia Business// August 29, 2024//
Years before she was appointed to serve in Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration, Merrick and her husband, Phillip Merrick, founded webMethods, a software company that helped businesses connect data from disparate systems via the web. The company grew steadily from the mid-1990s tech boom until the business sold to Software AG in 2007 for $546 million.
Merrick, who is a venture partner in startup investment firm NextGen Venture Partners, also later founded and led Pocket Mentor, an app delivering leadership tools.
Before her appointment as the state’s secretary of commerce and trade in 2022, Merrick served as CEO of Youngkin’s nonprofit Virginia Ready initiative, which promoted workforce development.
In her current role, Merrick leads 13 agencies with 1,300 team members. She oversaw the launch of the state’s Compete to Win economic development policy, which aims to enhance the commonwealth’s workforce development, site inventory and infrastructure growth.
Merrick earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, and completed Harvard Business School’s corporate governance program.
