Meredith Archie was named president of the NC Chamber Foundation in April 2022. She leads the Foundation’s competitiveness institute activities, oversees commissioned studies, and provides guidance on public policy issues outlined in North Carolina Vision 2030, categorized by three pillars: Education and Talent Supply, Competitive Business Climate, and Infrastructure and Growth Leadership. Under Archie’s leadership, the Foundation serves as a convener around these issues and conducts nonpartisan research on complex challenges, crafts sound policy recommendations, and tracks progress.
Since its inception, the research and policy recommendations of the NC Chamber Foundation have been leveraged by the NC Chamber and aligned business organizations to advocate for fundamental reforms, which positioned North Carolina as a top-10 state to work and do business. Today, the NC Chamber Foundation is focused on maintaining our state’s competitive position and fostering a sustainable environment for businesses and communities to thrive.
A native North Carolinian, Archie is from Rocky Mount where she grew up working for her family’s business and gained a deep appreciation for businesses’ contributions to communities and the opportunity provided through good jobs.
Before joining the NC Chamber Foundation, Archie was at Duke Energy for seven years where she led communications and engagement strategy in North Carolina, including corporate communications, stakeholder engagement, executive positioning and serving as company spokesperson. Prior to that, she directed communications efforts for the NC Chamber and NC Chamber Foundation from 2011 to 2015. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts in communication studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Archie resides in Raleigh with her husband, Charles, and two daughters, where she is an active member of the community.
Having joined PepsiCo in 1994, Jeff recently retired as the Global Senior Vice President of Commercial Capabilities. His teams were responsible for accelerating and converting global demand for PepsiCo’s categories through advantaged insights, analytics, pricing, promotion, merchandising, marketing, and execution capabilities. Throughout his career, Jeff has held leadership roles across Brand Marketing, National Sales, Insights, Analytics, Retail Strategy and Global Service Centers. Jeff has deep CPG and Retail experience in North America, and most recently led Commercial teams across approximately twenty key global markets. Prior to PepsiCo and business school, Jeff spent four years in corporate banking with Hibernia National Bank in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Jeff thrives in helping others achieve their personal and professional aspirations. Drawing on his 35-year career, he recently kicked off a passion project in Executive Coaching. His practice focuses on four areas of transformation: 1) Growth, 2) Influence, 3) Communication and 4) Agility. His motivation to serve and enable the growth and development of others.
Jeff is a frequent speaker and contributor to industry and academic events and publications, serves and supports his alma maters and volunteers in his local community. Jeff has a Finance degree from the Price Business School at the University of Oklahoma and an MBA from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Jeff and his wife Lynn live in McKinney, Texas and have two sons.
Jayson Crusenberry is a seasoned marketing and communications professional with over a decade of experience supporting Indigenous communities. Most recently, he served as the Director of Communications for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, where he led impactful multi-platform campaigns, advanced tourism, and supported government and community initiatives. Now, as Program Manager for NCGrowth at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Jayson will lead efforts for the Native Edge Tourism Technical Assistance Center, focusing on empowering tribal communities and expanding cultural and heritage tourism. With expertise in strategic planning, storytelling, and stakeholder collaboration, Jayson is passionate about fostering sustainable growth and celebrating Native heritage. He holds an MBA from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and a BS in Mass Communications from East Tennessee State University.
Dr. Dedric A. Carter is Vice Chancellor for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Economic Development and Chief Innovation Officer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Carter has cabinet level responsibility for the entrepreneurship, innovation, economic development and commercialization portfolios at the University through Innovate Carolina and the Innovate Carolina Junction among other oversight and engagement roles. He teaches courses in systems applications to technical, business and policy issues with an emphasis on the entrepreneurial process, innovation and new venture creation.
Prior to his appointment, he was the Vice Chancellor for Innovation & Chief Commercialization Officer at Washington University in St. Louis with faculty appointments as professor of engineering practice at the McKelvey School of Engineering and professor of practice in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the John M. Olin School of Business. Dr. Carter had responsibility for the entrepreneurship, innovation and commercialization portfolios at Washington University. Dr. Carter was the founding Co-principal investigator of NSF Missouri Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation in STEM program ($5M) and principal investigator on one of 44 inaugural Type 1 NSF Engine awards ($1M, NEURO360). During his time at Washington University, Dr. Carter launched the Needleman Program for Commercialization for advancing drug development.
Prior to joining Washington University, he served as the senior advisor for strategic initiatives in the Office of the Director at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in addition to serving as the executive secretary to the U.S. National Science Board executive committee. At NSF, Dr. Carter launched and oversaw the NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program to impact the speed of basic research commercialization.
Dr. Carter became chairman of the Missouri Technology Corporation in 2021. He is a member of the MIT Office of Sponsored Research Visiting Committee, and a Fellow of the Academy of Science-St. Louis. Additionally, he is a board member of the Center for American Entrepreneurship, the Lemelson Foundation International Advisory Board, and Junior Achievement.
Among other experiences, Dr. Carter has been a venture-backed entrepreneur. He has an undergraduate and graduate degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT, an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management, and a Ph.D. in Information Systems from Nova Southeastern University.
Annelies Goger is an economic geographer focused on developing innovative policy solutions to address rising inequality and increase access to economic opportunity. Dr. Goger’s recent work investigates how to scale earn-and-learn opportunities in the U.S., how to build equitable skills-based hiring data systems, and how to leverage federal investments in infrastructure and innovation ecosystems to improve access to quality jobs and learning opportunities. She is an expert in U.S. workforce development policy, global supply chains, and inclusive economic development. Dr. Goger’s work has been prominently featured in TEDx San Quentin, CNN, NPR, Washington Monthly, the Hill, and a number of local outlets and podcasts. Dr. Goger’s work has challenged the dominant “skills gap” narrative, arguing that building stronger education and labor market institutions, addressing information asymmetries about careers and resulting patterns of occupational segregation, and making long-term investments in talent development are the key to unleashing regional innovation and addressing racial and gender inequities in the labor market.
David Deming is the Danoff Dean of Harvard College and the Isabelle and Scott Black Professor of Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School. He is also a Research Associate at NBER. From 2021 to 2024 he served as the Academic Dean of HKS.
His research focuses on higher education, economic inequality, skills, technology, and the future of the labor market. He is a Principal Investigator (along with Raj Chetty and John Friedman) at the CLIMB Initiative, an organization that seeks to study and improve the role of higher education in social mobility. He is also a faculty lead of the Project on Workforce, a cross-Harvard initiative that focuses on building better pathways to economic mobility through the school-to-work transition. He recently co-founded (with Ben Weidmann) the Skills Lab, which creates performance-based measures of “soft” skills such as teamwork and decision-making.
In 2022, he won the Sherwin Rosen Prize for outstanding contributions to Labor Economics. In 2018, he was awarded the David N. Kershaw Prize for distinguished contributions to the field of public policy and management under the age of 40. He served as a Coeditor of the AEJ: Applied from 2018 to 2021. He writes occasional columns in The Atlantic and previously for the New York Times Economic View, as well as on his Substack newsletter Forked Lightning. You can find his research and other details on his personal website.
Azza has a vast range of administrative experience. Managing documentation, coordinating special projects, arranging travel, resolving inquires, and explaining policy and procedures to others are some of the skills she brings to her position.
Her prior positions include administrative assistant at the Duke University Health System and executive assistant/financial officer at the Qatar Foundation.
Azza holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Alexandria University and is bilingual in English and Arabic. She enjoys learning about new cultures, organizing processes, traveling and exploring new places, as well as creative outlets like painting and hand embroidery.
Sage supports the institute through the creation of graphic and multimedia content for branding, web and communication products.
With a rich background in UI design, graphic design and digital art, she has developed her expertise by designing and building websites, creating marketing materials, and crafting design layouts for a nationally distributed magazine.
Sage graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in studio design from UNC-Chapel Hill and completed UI/UX Design Bootcamp at Designlab.
Meghan Blackwood is excited to begin her work in higher education as the Program Coordinator for the Luther Hodges Scholars Program. Her work involves planning and coordinating the program’s signature events, overseeing the program’s digital media communications and online presence, and providing administrative support.
Before joining the Kenan Institute, Meghan was a choral program director for New Hanover County Schools in Wilmington, North Carolina, where she taught music education, facilitated full-production musicals and stage performances, and enjoyed fostering an engaging choral community.
Meghan completed her Bachelor of Music in Music Education at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey, graduating summa cum laude.
As a research analyst, Dingyuan supports the institute’s data efforts across its economic indicator projects, including the American Growth Project and the Empowering American Cities collaboration with Fifth Third Bank.
Dingyuan recently earned a Master of Science in Engineering in data science from the University of Pennsylvania. During his studies, he interned as a technical analyst at Wayfair and served as a technical consultant at the Wharton Mack Institute. He is also a Tar Heel, having earned a bachelor’s degree in statistics and economics at Carolina.