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Jason El Koubi

Jan 12, 2023

10 Va. companies graduate VEDP export program

Ten Virginia companies are the latest to graduate from the Virginia Economic Development Partnership’s Virginia Leaders in Export Trade (VALET) program, which helps companies work on international export growth strategies, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced this week. The two-year VALET program helps Virginia companies that have established domestic operations use international exporting as a gro[...]

Gov. Glenn Youngkin speaks at the announcement of Lego Group's Chesterfield County facility.
Nov 2, 2022

Site Selection ranks Va. 1st for biz climate

Virginia rose to first place in Site Selection magazine’s 2022 Business Climate Rankings. The commonwealth unseated North Carolina and ranked above Georgia, which had an eight-year streak in the top spot. Last year, Virginia was tied for 10th place. “I’m pleased that Virginia has won the best business climate; it’s incredibly exciting to see the […]

Oct 28, 2022

Everything is not awesome

When Lego Group representatives toured Chesterfield County’s Meadowville Technology Park on a winter day early this year, they didn’t speak. As with most industrial site visits, the county economic development authority staffers conducting the tour didn’t yet know which company they were working with, although they’d answered a site consultant’s request for proposal. [...]

Sen. Mark Warner receives a tour of the C. Kenneth and Dianne Harris Wright Virginia Microelectronics Center from Hadis Morkoç, Virginia Commonwealth University Founders Professor of Electrical Engineering and Physics
Aug 27, 2022

Va. officials woo chip manufacturers

U.S. Sen. Mark Warner and state and local economic development officials are vying to attract semiconductor chip manufacturing facilities to four Virginia industrial sites as the commonwealth gears up to fight for a piece of the financial pie from sweeping federal legislation that promises to ramp up chip production in the U.S. Representatives of Chesterfield, […]

Jason El Koubi was named president and CEO of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership in March. Photo by Matthew R.O. Brown
Apr 28, 2022

Rainmaker-in-chief 

On Aug. 29, 2005, Jason El Koubi‘s first day as research and policy director for Louisiana’s Baton Rouge regional chamber of commerce, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the state, resetting El Koubi’s and the state’s trajectory. It was a fast lesson in crisis management, but also one in economic transformation. That job was among his first […]

Amazon.com Inc.’s Suffolk fulfillment center will be the largest industrial building in the state when it opens this year. Photo courtesy Amazon.com Inc.
Apr 28, 2022

Amazon be nimble, Amazon be quick

When it comes to building warehouses and distribution centers, one company has sought out Virginia over and over again: Amazon.com Inc. The e-commerce giant began opening facilities in Virginia in 2006 and since then has opened more than 30 facilities in the commonwealth, with more on the way as it seeks to shrink the time […]

Mar 30, 2022

Hitting a brick wall

Casey Renner has worked in four states over the course of her teaching career, and she’s never liked a school more than Arlington County’s Wakefield High School, where she teaches science and special education. But she has also never had as much difficulty finding housing near work as she has during her 17 years teaching […]

Mar 18, 2022

Jason El Koubi named VEDP’s permanent president, CEO

Jason El Koubi will stay on as the permanent president and CEO of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, the state economic development authority announced Friday.  El Koubi was named interim president and CEO at the beginning of the year after Stephen Moret left the organization to become president and CEO of Indianapolis-based Strada Education Network. […]

Dec 16, 2021

Northam proposes $150M for site readiness

When Mazda Toyota was looking to build a plant that would have brought 4,000 jobs and 1.6 billion in investment, Virginia was ruled out. Why? Because Virginia didn’t have a competitive project-ready site available. Huntsville, Alabama, landed the deal instead.  Since 2016, Virginia has lost out on 42,000 direct jobs and over $75 billion in capital […]

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