Editor’s note: Este artículo está traducido al español.
The Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance has launched a three-year strategic plan that organizational leadership characterizes as a “regional alignment strategy” with stakeholders and other partners to diversify the local economy.
The “North Star” of the plan is to “create a more diversified economy by increasing higher-wage trade-sector industries,” according to a summary shared with the Sun. Trying to get more jobs that diversify the local economy is one thing, but diversifying in the right sectors to bring quality jobs to the market is the real trick, said Danielle Casey, president and CEO of the LVGEA.
“Knowing where we’re rowing to — that’s what I’m most excited about,” said Casey, who assumed her role at the LVGEA last summer. “And I think our board is really excited about this as well.”
The strategic plan was formed with input by stakeholders, the LVGEA board of directors, other consultants and a third-party company that’s part of a site selection group — meaning they were analyzing the LVGEA’s organizational strategy through the lens of companies that would be exploring locations in the region, Casey said.
Las Vegas’ economy continues to be heavily concentrated on leisure and hospitality, making it vulnerable to disruption by events like the COVID-19 pandemic, Casey said. While economic diversification has been a recent goal of local economic leaders since then, however, she said there was a lack of “clear consensus.”
“Everybody cares about diversifying the economy,” Casey said. “We had a lot of wonderful support, but not alignment on what the real problem is, what we need to address, how we actually move the economy forward and what diversification truly looks like.”
Las Vegas sits at a 74 on the Hachman Index, a metric by which to measure the economic diversity of a given region. The closer to 100 on the Hachman Index, Casey said, the better a region’s economic diversification.
While a 74 may not seem so bad, she said, it converts to about 26% of the local economy being tourism and hospitality. Meanwhile, peer markets like Orlando, Fla., and Nashville, Tenn., are below 20% and 15%, respectively.
“Our goal is to not reduce the amount of tourism and hospitality in our market, but increase the amount of other target industries that we’re seeing,” she said.
The strategic plan aims to increase Las Vegas’ score on the Hachman Index to a 76 or 77, a significant job growth rate, and the number of high-paying, high-quality jobs.
“We want to focus on industries and opportunities that give us a higher wage premium — companies that allow people to come in without skill sets and train up and have great career pathways where they can have high earnings,” she said. “That’s, that’s the dream, right? That’s the absolute ideal.”
The LVGEA’s new strategic plan designates five target industries: advanced manufacturing, creative industries, business and financial, health and life sciences and technology.
Companies between those sectors include computer and electronic product management, sports entertainment and graphic design, biotech research and development, aerospace and defense, advertising and much more.
Advanced manufacturing in the region is currently responsible for about 11,000 of its jobs, a 30% growth rate over the past five years, Casey said.
“So we’re looking at that growth rate and also the gross regional product that’s being pumped out annually by this industry, so if we are able to add another 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 jobs in this sector, now you’ve got multiple billions of output coming into the region,” she said.
The LVGEA intends to go after these target industries and create an environment conducive for their growth, said Casey, who emphasized that just because the LVGEA is not proactively recruiting companies from other industries to the region, that doesn’t mean they can’t also benefit from the organization’s assistance if and when they come.
Focusing on these target industries is just one way the LVGEA plans to achieve one of the strategic plan’s four primary goals: business development. Other tactics to that end include but are not limited to engaging the brokerage and development community, and coordinating an AI and technology workforce pipeline.
“That’s probably our most in-depth one, because business development really is our primary role and always will be,” Casey said.
Other goals of the strategic plan include marketing and positioning — like building up a stronger national reputation, increasing national storytelling opportunities and more — regional competitiveness and organizational excellence.
When it comes to regional competitiveness, the strategic plan emphasizes site readiness, incentives, engagement with federal lawmakers and more that would make Las Vegas a feasible destination for companies.
“If an economic development strategy were as simple as, ‘We’re going to target those four companies or those four industries, and we’re going to tell them why it’s so great here,’ that would be awesome,” Casey said. “The reality is, at the same time, you need to move the needle to make sure it’s great here for them, and make sure you’re removing obstacles.”
As for organizational excellence, Casey said the goal is for the LVGEA to restructure internally in order to deliver on other aspects of the strategic plan.
Among other tactics, that goal will be achieved through expansion of the organization’s staff, the definition of its role in relation to other local economic entities and the modernization of its funding — which is currently an annual budget of about $3.8 million, according to Casey.
Ideally, that number would be $4.5 million, said Casey, who claimed the current budget is lean compared with competitors. The LVGEA also wants to convert to a full public charity model, she said, otherwise known as a 501(c)(3), which would open it up to foundation dollars from investors, make it eligible for new grants and more.
A large number of regional economic development organizations, like the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, identify as nonprofits, Casey said, because “it’s understood that this is a public-private partnership for the greater good.”
“The process is definitely tricky,” she said. “The IRS doesn’t just rubber-stamp things, so they are going to take a very good hard look, and it will be incumbent upon us to make a very clear case that we do operate in that manner. So they’re going to look under the hood, so to speak, and make sure that that is truly how we’re operating, that that’s how our funding is being used.”
At minimum, the LVGEA wants to make the statement that it is mission-based, even if being incorporated as a nonprofit creates no cost-benefit, Casey said.
The organization reworked its mission statement to frame itself as a “trusted regional partner” connecting and championing Southern Nevada’s economic future, with a vision statement forecasting that the region “will lead the next era of growth as the world’s capital of reinvention, providing opportunity for all.”
“If we’re bringing investment here, if it’s not making people’s lives better, if it’s only making a small amount of people’s lives better and it’s not improving overall economic conditions, are we really doing what we need to be doing?” Casey said.
