At Economic Development Symposium, Students Build on SOM’s Foundation in the Field

At Evans Hall, Cristina Killingsworth and Eric Smith—co-founders of the firm Start Grow Remain—turned to a regional audience of students, practitioners, and researchers, inviting them to reflect on why the firm’s work advancing critical technology production in the United States matters. “Why does this work deserve our attention?” Killingsworth asked.

“Building industry in the United States creates economic opportunity and good jobs,” she said. “And it’s not economic development for economic development’s sake. It’s doing so to build robust and well-rounded communities in this country.”

The two former senior Commerce Department officials were the keynote speakers at Yale SOM’s 2026 Economic Development Symposium, which brings leading practitioners and researchers to campus to discuss the future of the field each year.

Killingsworth and Smith described an economic development landscape shaped by global competition, complex technologies and supply chains, and growing inequality. They argued that regional partnerships investing in critical technologies can strengthen local communities and support U.S. competitiveness and security—even in a shifting national policy environment. Their discussion framed the conference’s 2026 theme, “Localizing Impact: Communities and the Future.”

Hosted by SOM’s Economic Development Club, the symposium is entirely student-organized.

“It offers a valuable opportunity to understand how initiatives at Yale, within New Haven, and across the state intersect, and how these stakeholders collectively contribute to regional economic development,” says symposium co-chair Avrey Callis ’26, who previously worked for the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development.

This year, Callis and her co-chair, Samira Anant ’26, led a team of 10 MBA students in organizing the symposium. Over several months, they decided on a theme, designed the agenda, and recruited speakers for panels, working to ensure that the private, public, and nonprofit sectors were well-represented. They aimed to craft an event that would resonate with students interested in the field as well as those who might think their careers won’t explicitly involve economic development. Whatever sector they work in, Callis notes, her peers will inevitably make business decisions about where their organizations build, hire, and invest—all choices that impact local communities and have the potential to enhance them.

The symposium’s origins date back to the early 1980s, when Andrea Levere ’83 and her classmates worked with faculty to design the curriculum for a dedicated economic development class.

Levere’s classmate Katherine Gross ’83 later established a fund to expand SOM students’ access to the field. The Sidney Gross Memorial Community Economic Development Fund—inspired by Gross’s parents, first-generation college students who encouraged their children to gain practical exposure to different career paths—supports the Economic Development Club, helping SOM students do the same.

Since 1997, the fund has facilitated club activities like job treks to New York City and Washington, D.C. It also gave rise to, and helps sustain, the Economic Development Symposium, which dates back to 1999.

“What’s happening in this field? Who’s doing it? How might I connect to it? I think the symposium is a wonderful expression of that,” Gross said.

SOM alumni have applied what they learned about economic development at SOM in distinct ways. Gross now directs the Charlotte Foundation, a family foundation that provides funding and strategic advice to nonprofits. Levere led the economic development and policy organization Prosperity Now for decades; more recently, she founded the nonprofit Capitalize Good to promote better funding practices for the social sector—an idea that grew out of a fellowship at SOM.

Alumni involvement remains central to the symposium. Levere and many others have returned over the years as moderators, speakers, and collaborators. For Lily Engbith ’24, who attended the symposium as a student and returned this year as an alum, it’s a way to stay connected to the community.

“As a native New Haven resident, I think it’s great for SOM to host events that are locally oriented,” said Engbith, who now serves as a fellow focused on federal affairs in the office of Connecticut governor Ned Lamont. She describes the symposium as one that “puts the school’s mission into action.”

This year, symposium panels explored municipal finance, economic revitalization, and quantum technologies. The agenda also included the debut of “lightning talks,” short presentations designed to elevate student voices.

Lightning talk presenters shared innovative economic development ideas for regions around the world. A student from Harvard Business School introduced a financial structure to support urban infrastructure investment in Central Asia’s Fergana Valley. A team from the MIT Sloan School of Management proposed a cooperative platform that could support entrepreneurship and conservation in the Galapagos. Other presenters shared models to sustain small businesses in Lagos, Nigeria, and New York City.

To facilitate the session, organizers connected with similar clubs at peer schools to recruit students. They say the goal is to build a regional network of students interested in economic development—and create opportunities for students to educate practitioners and each other.

Tony Sheldon ’84, a senior lecturer in the practice of management, has served as the club’s faculty adviser for nearly two decades. For him, the event reflects what first drew him to SOM as a student: the school's mission of educating leaders for business and society.

“The institution is interested, the students are interested, and our alumni are doing incredible work in the field all over the country and all over the world,” he said. “That throughline has been present for the last 50 years.”