Ellen D. Harpel, Ph.D.
Ellen Harpel is the founder of Smart Incentives and president of Business Development Advisors LLC (BDA), an economic development and market intelligence consulting firm.
Ellen has helped many communities evaluate the competitiveness of their incentives offerings. Using the Smart Incentives 4 x 4 framework, she continues to work with economic development organizations to implement policies that enable them to achieve their development goals while making smart fiscal and economic decisions.
Recent projects include competitive analyses of state and local incentive policies, implementation of ROI and other program metrics, data management and reporting for evaluations, and assessments of incentive management processes. Ellen speaks and writes frequently on incentive policies and programs for national audiences comprising economic developers, elected officials and finance professionals.
Ellen is a Senior Research Fellow with the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness and an affiliate with the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University. She is an active member of the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER), International Economic Development Council (IEDC), Council of Development Finance Agencies (CDFA), and Virginia Economic Developers Association.
She received a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, an MBA from the University of North Carolina, and her Ph.D. in regional economics from George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government.
