By Nicole Morell, Director of Communications
Since 2023, the Taubman Center has hosted the Economic Development Post-Graduate Fellowship—a yearlong, competitively paid fellowship for a graduating HKS student to work full-time with a state, county, regional, or city economic development agency.
As we mark our fourth year of the fellowship, we’re excited to announce our newest fellow Sahian Valladares MC/MPA 2026 who will be working in the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce in Madison, WI. Sahian joins an impressive group of past fellows serving in roles across the country, including Virginia Carefoot (MPP 2023) with the City of San Antonio Economic Development Department, James Schisler (MPP 2024) with the Colorado Office of Economic Development & International Trade, and, most recently, Gloria Korpas (MPP 2025) with the Miami-Dade County Office of Innovation and Economic Development.
Sahian will be joining the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce at an exciting time of transformation, as the Chamber recently expanded its scope to include regional economic development responsibilities. Sahian will be working under the leadership of Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce President Zach Brandon and Vice President Kevin Little to support the development of a comprehensive, long-range regional economic development strategy among other exciting opportunities.
Zach, who has been president of the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce since 2012, visited the Kennedy School earlier this year to speak to the Taubman Center’s State and Local Economic Development Seminar students about his vision for the Chamber, his career pathway in economic development, and opportunities and challenges he sees in the field. Read more from Zach below.
How did you end up working in economic development?
Right after college, I did a short stint in political consulting but decided that wasn't for me. I did have some good campaign success, though, so I used the “win” bonuses from those campaigns and took some time to think about what I wanted to do. A small group of entrepreneurs I had worked with in college reached out to me and asked if I would join as a partner and help them raise money for their next venture—a chain of laundromats with bars in them. One of our locations was in Madison, WI, and I was up there to train a new manager, driving or flying back and forth to my kids back home in Ohio. It wasn't the lifestyle I wanted, so I moved my family to Madison, thinking it would be temporary. I fell in love with the city and in that time, I got involved in some city committees, but I had this overriding frustration trying to build a business there. There was a lot of bureaucracy and difficulties, and I quickly realized that no one on the city council had ever signed the front of a paycheck.
So, after living in Madison for two years, I decided to run for city council. And I won. The mayor asked me which committees I wanted to be on. I knew I wanted to serve on whichever one was closest to helping businesses and business owners. That was the economic development committee, and it was slated to be eliminated. I helped revitalize that committee, and after three terms on the city council, I was asked to serve in the governor's cabinet as the Deputy Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Commerce.
Shortly after I joined the Department of Commerce, the 2008 recession happened. Not wanting to squander the crisis, we completely reworked the state's incentive toolbox and refocused on entrepreneurship. It was a great moment to do that. When the next governor took office, I returned to my roots in angel investing and focused on building the early-stage capital ecosystem. As I was driving to a board meeting of the Wisconsin Tech Council, another board member shared that the president of the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce was retiring and encouraged me to put my name in. I said, “I don’t want to be the Chamber president. I dropped my chamber membership when I was in business, and I don't even know what the Chamber does.” He replied, “That's all the more reason why you should put your name in.”
I did. Looking back, it all makes sense, but at the time, it felt like a jumbled path.
What challenges in the field are you most concerned about these days?
In Madison, we know we’re on the cusp of the next big thing. For example, if you knew that Austin would be Austin 25 years ago, what could you do with that information? Or Seattle 35 years ago? Or Chicago 75 years ago? What could you have done? We can see the success these cities have achieved and the challenges that have resulted, like traffic congestion, huge increases in housing costs, and inequity. We can look at Madison and see the similarities and try to avoid some of the pitfalls other cities have faced due to exponential growth.
We know our population is going to hit one million residents in the next 25 years. We hope people will talk about this Midwestern miracle, a city moving against the odds in the Midwest. But we have about 25 years before we hit that moment, giving us about a decade to get things right before everything becomes baked in.
How do you get it right when you see so many other places that got it wrong or got to “almost”? That’s what keeps me up at night. Not many cities get to be on a trajectory like Madison is on right now. And of those who have, most of them either just let it happen or make the wrong decisions. They didn't ask the right questions. They weren’t curious, like we are.
What gives you hope right now in the field?
In 2024, the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce met with then-Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. He asked us, “What do you need?” I told him we weren’t there to ask for funding; we were there to ask for guidance. I asked him which cities are getting it right when it comes to economic development and improving residents' lives. The Secretary replied that he didn’t think any city was getting it completely right, and there was an opportunity for Madison to be the one that does. I love that. It will take a lot of work to reach that ideal, but I love the idea that there could be a “Madison model” that people look to as an example of a fast-moving tech-enabled economy, that faced the challenges that come with growth but sorted it and did it better than it's been done before.
Why is it important for you to come to Harvard Kennedy School and meet with students?
The Kennedy School has a tremendous reputation for combining theory and practice. I also value the opportunity to be in front of students and share how important it is to be passionate about their place in this field. You can’t be agnostic about a community and deliver durable prosperity for it.
Part of what I hope to leave students with is: Do not fall into the trap of the cottage industry around economic development, where it can be insular, and people jump from city to city frequently. Success is a combination of tools, people, stick-to-itiveness, and relationships. That’s what’s important to the work in this field, and I am honored to be asked to share that with today’s students and tomorrow's practitioners.
