Youngkin appoints lottery director, tax commissioner and chief transformation officer

Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced three new hires in his administration Friday, including a new lottery director, chief transformation officer and tax commissioner.

Khalid Jones, a hedge fund founder, attorney and licensing firm partner, was appointed director of the Virginia Lottery, assuming the role previously held by Kelly Gee, who was named secretary of the commonwealth in August 2023. Tony R. Russell was appointed interim lottery director in September 2023. In addition to managing lottery ticket sales, the agency has oversight for the state’s casino industry.

Jones, who started as lottery director this month, according to his LinkedIn page, was previously a partner at All American Licensing, a sports and entertainment branding, marketing and licensing firm based in New York and Los Angeles, and before that, at The Koller Group and SourceRock Partners. He also served as general counsel for SourceRock and co-founded hedge fund Thrasher Funds, as well as serving as an associate at several law firms focusing on securities enforcement and intellectual property. Jones also helped start an esports team, Echo Fox, with NBA star Rick Fox that has since disbanded. He has degrees from Wake Forest University and Stanford University’s law school.

According to Youngkin’s announcement Friday, Jones “has become one of the nation’s experts in licensing consulting, providing legal and strategic advice to state and national lottery organizations, [and] providing the expertise to lead Virginia’s lottery system at a crucial time of growth and expansion.”

Robert Ward, the state’s new chief transformation officer, previously served as a real estate senior adviser to Youngkin since August 2023, and was president and CEO of Skanska USA Commercial Development from July 2017 to November 2022. Before that, he served as chief operating officer and executive vice president of the Swedish construction company’s multifamily and commercial real estate arm.

A Virginia Tech graduate, Ward was responsible for more than $4.5 billion in real estate assets across the United States at Skanska. He replaces Eric Moeller, the state’s first chief transformation officer, a job Youngkin created to improve efficiency and lower costs in state agencies soon after taking office in 2022. A former Kinsey & Co. efficiency expert, Moeller left the position in February, having made extensive changes at the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority and the Virginia Employment Commission.

According to a February story in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Richmond business leader Bob Sledd, co-founder of Performance Food Group, appeared poised to become the next CTO following Moeller’s departure and had become a senior adviser to Youngkin. However, he left that position less than a month later for undisclosed reasons, the RTD reported in March.

James Alex, a partner and principal at RSM who leads the assurance, tax and consulting firm’s U.S. tax policy section, replaces Craig M. Burns, who retired last month as the state’s tax commissioner after being appointed in 2010. Alex previously served as senior advisor to the assistant secretary for tax policy in the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2018 and 2019, and was employed at Ernst & Young in its national tax practice from 1995 to 2016. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and has two degrees from Georgetown Law School.