Stephen Moret

For more than two decades, Stephen Moret has provided strategic leadership at the intersection of economic development, higher education, and workforce development. He has crafted public-private partnerships, higher education programs, and workforce development initiatives that have enabled tens of thousands of people to secure better jobs. 

Since 2022, Moret has served as president and CEO of Strada Education Foundation. At Strada, he and his team developed and are executing a strategic plan aimed at strengthening pathways to opportunity for individuals and enhancing workforce competitiveness for employers. He led the founding of CredLens, a pioneering national data trust providing insights on nondegree credentials. Moret was a coauthor of Talent Disrupted, a groundbreaking, widely cited report on underemployment of college graduates.

Moret previously served as CEO of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership. At VEDP, he collaborated with university presidents and policymakers to design and implement Virginia’s $1.1-billion Tech Talent Investment Program and launch the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus. He also led Virginia’s successful state-and-local team bid for Amazon HQ2 and created the Virginia Office of Education Economics.

Before VEDP, Moret served as secretary of Louisiana Economic Development, CEO of the LSU Foundation, and consultant with McKinsey & Co. He led the creation of two of America’s top-ranked state workforce development programs, LED FastStart and the Virginia Talent Accelerator Program. 

Moret’s work has been highlighted in The Economist, Forbes, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. A proud graduate of Louisiana State University, he also earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and a doctorate (Ed.D.) in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania. 

Moret serves on the boards of the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership and the Virginia Business Higher Education Council.