DOUG HENTON • Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Doug Henton has more than 30 years of experience in economic and community development at the national, regional, state, and local levels. Doug is nationally recognized for his work in bringing industry, government, education, research, and community leaders together around specific collaborative projects to improve regional competitiveness.
He was project manager for the start-up of the Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, an innovative, results-oriented regional economic development alliance. He continues to serve as Joint Venture’s economist, and is the architect of Joint Venture’s annual Index of Silicon Valley.
Doug is a consultant to the California Economic Strategy Panel, California’s first state economic strategy process linked to industry clusters and regions. He is a consultant to Next 10 for the development of the Green Innovation Index. He is the co-author of Silicon Valley Greenprint and regional coordinator of National Climate Prosperity Project. He helped launch collaborative regional efforts in Sacramento, Fresno and San Diego. He was consultant to the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative. Doug has also advised Chicago Metropolis 2020, the Potomac Conference and Arizona Partnership for a New Economy.
Doug founded Collaborative Economics in July 1993 after a decade as assistant director of SRI International’s Center for Economic Competitiveness. At SRI he led major state-level strategy development projects in Arizona, Florida, and California. Internationally, Doug directed major projects on the economic future of Hong Kong, the technopolis strategy in Japan, and regional development in China.
With colleagues Kim Walesh and John Melville, Doug has written a book, Grassroots Leaders for the New Economy: How Civic Entrepreneurs Are Building Prosperous Communities, published by Jossey-Bass in March 1997. Their second book Civic Revolutionaries: Igniting the Passion for Change in America’s Communities published by Jossey-Bass in October 2003.
Doug holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Yale University and a master of public policy degree from the University of California, Berkeley.
Collaborative Economics currently has a core staff of 11 and an extensive network of partners representing a broad array of expertise.