Harvard Business School Executive Education

University of California, Los Angeles

Secretary of Commerce and Trade, Commonwealth of Virginia

Richmond, Virginia, United States

Lead economic development and growth in Virginia, working with a team of leaders to ensure Virginia competes to win and is the best place to start, grow or relocate a business.  Guide and oversee a variety of agencies that are essential drivers for economic growth. Agencies include the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, Virginia Energy, the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation, the Department of Housing and Community Development, Virginia Tourism, Virginia Housing, Broadband/The Virginia Telecommunications Initiative m, GO Virginia, Activation Capital, the Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission, Virginia Small Business Finance Agency, Small Business Supplier Diversity, and Fort Monroe.  Commerce and Trade employs 1,700 Virginians with $2B in resources.  We work collaboratively across business and government, generating an environment where people and businesses thrive and grow.
            

    
    

    
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Governor Glenn Youngkin, Commonwealth of Virginia

Secretary of Commerce and Trade

Dynamic, business led partnership formed in response to the economic hardships created by COVID-19 helping over 5,000 Virginians rapidly reskill for in-demand jobs.  Business Partners include 24 of the Commonwealth’s leading businesses like EY, Bank of America, SAIC, Genworth Financial, PwC, Northrop Grumman, Carilion Clinics and the Virginia Community College System’s 23 community colleges, to retrain and equip Virginians who want to gain skills for in-demand jobs in high-growth sectors.  VA Ready offers an innovative model to solve the labor shortage in a variety of industries while helping individuals, families and whole communities to flourish.
            

    
    

    
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VA Ready

Chief Executive Officer

Chairman, Technology Committee

WashingtonFirst Bankshares, Inc. has been acquired by Sandy Spring Bancorp.  From 2004 - 2017, Washington First Bankshares was is headquartered in Reston, Virginia and is the holding company for WashingtonFirst Bank.  WashingtonFirst Bank,  focused on providing quality, tailored services to its customers, and conducted a full service commercial banking operation through 19 branches in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The Company's common stock was traded on the NASDAQ Stock Market under the quotation symbol "WFBI" and was included in the ABA NASDAQ Community Bank Index and the Russell 2000® index.
            

    
    

    
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WashingtonFirst Bankshares, Inc.

Board of Directors

Chairman, Valuations Committee, Member, Audit Committee

A growing family of public and private investment funds with $3+ billion invested. Funds include a commercial REIT, a buy-out fund acquiring mature, middle market companies with $20 - $100 million in revenues; a BDC with financing solutions across nineteen industries; and an imaginative REIT investing in farmland in major agricultural markets in the United States.

The Gladstone family of companies includes Gladstone Capital Corporation (NASDAQ: GLAD), Gladstone Investment Corporation (NASDAQ: GAIN), Gladstone Commercial Corporation (NASDAQ: GOOD), and Gladstone Land Corporation (NASDAQ: LAND).
            

    
    

    
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The Gladstone Companies

Created and launched mobile application delivering leadership development tools to managers in a variety of corporations.  Led team of application developers and digital marketing experts.  Impact for users of the application: growth in personal leadership and team collaboration, resulting in increased revenues.

Pocket Mentor Mobile Application

Founder & CEO

Appointed by Governor of Virginia.  MWAA oversees Washington Dulles International Airport and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, which are national and global gateways to Virginia and the U.S. Together these generate over $800million in annual revenue and serve over 40 million domestic and international passengers, and thousands of businesses a year.  MWAA also oversees the Dulles Toll Road, with 85 million trips annually, and the $6bn Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project through Dulles International Airport.

Committee leadership included Co-Chair of Strategic Development Committee, Co-Chair of Business Administration, Co-Chair of Finance, Chairman of Nominations Committee, member of Audit & Risk Management Committee, Executive and Governance Committee, Ethics Committee and Dulles Corridor Committee.
            

    
    

    
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Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority

Venture-backed multimedia resume and corporate recruiting solution.  As acting CMO, recruited PR and social media agencies, marketing team, and oversaw corporate and product launch including successful positioning, messaging, website, search engine marketing and optimization, partner marketing and media outreach.

VisualCV, Inc.

Investor, Corporate Director

Bibury Partners was an early stage investment and advisory fund focused on enterprise and consumer technology sectors.

Analyzed prospective portfolio companies, advised entrepreneurs and senior management on marketing, management, and business development direction to achieve growth and operational objectives.

Bibury Partners

Partner

Inova is Northern Virginia’s leading nonprofit healthcare provider, recognized in 2019 by U.S. News & World Report which named Inova Fairfax Hospital the #1 hospital in the Washington, DC region.  Served as board director when Inova generated $1B in revenue, with 16,000 employees serving more than 1 million people annually.

Inova Health System

Board Director

Innovative Corporate Social Responsibility

The vision for the webMethods Foundation began before the company was founded and it was to invest in the communities where the company would do business.  In the year of our IPO, the founders invested shares of the company in a private foundation named for the company.  The Foundation pioneered innovative approaches to inspire employees of webMethods, Inc. to serve, lead, and invest in education nonprofits that help low income families achieve their potential.

As co-founder, president, and chairman, I recruited executive director, board of directors, defined mission and provided oversight and governance. Over 60 nonprofits received grants, management advice, and volunteers. Nominated for national Excellence in Corporate Philanthropy Award.

Some of the regional organizations receiving grants include:

Higher Achievement, The Fishing School, Second Chance Employment, Inova Health System, CharityWorks, Boys & Girls Homes, Carlos Rosario International Career Center, Community of Hope, The Women’s Center, Calvary Women’s Services, and dozens more.  International organizations include Five Talents and Kibera, Kenya Project with Compassion International.

We were founding investors in Venture Philanthropy Partners, an innovative fund that is at the forefront of thought leadership and execution, investing in nonprofits to bring social change.
            

    
    

    
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webMethods Foundation (renamed The 118 Foundation in 2005)

Co-Founder, Chairman, President

As member of the executive management team, led marketing from start-up through and beyond IPO.  webMethods was the most successful software IPO in 2000. (Nasdaq:WEBM 2000 - 2007), acquired by SoftwareAG in 2007.

To date global companies like SAP, Wells Fargo, and DHL have purchased over $2B webMethods B2B solutions.  webMethods enjoyed the strongest revenue growth of any US software company 1998 to 2002 (zero to $200M) with Global 2000 customers across financial services, manufacturing, technology and consumer sectors.

Created and built marketing organization, led strategy and execution on brand and positioning, online marketing, lead generation and direct response, advertising, partner marketing with Fortune 500 companies, public relations, analyst relations, events and customer conferences, sales support, and market research.

As part of it's growth strategy, webMethods acquired several companies.   Co-chaired effective, cross-functional executive management team to oversee acquisition integration across all functional areas of the company.
            

    
    

    
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webMethods

Co-Founder, Executive Vice President, Marketing

Working with the CEO, led development of <a href="http://AOL.com">AOL.com</a> from corporate website to a search portal during rapid growth of the company when annual revenue was $1.6 billion.  Managed UI research, technical development and advertising agencies to define business model and rollout new portal products.

Caren Merrick

Caren Merrick