Much like Greater St. Louis, Inc., Jason R. Hall speaks with a unified voice and leads with a bold agenda.
Hall, CEO of Greater St. Louis, Inc., said he is continually motivated by an intense drive to better the St. Louis metro area, and it is his sustained drive for a better St. Louis that makes him unique.
“I love my community and want it to reach its potential,” Hall said.
From his early days as a lawyer to his time leading civic organizations, he wanted to improve the region that raised him, focusing on a vision to decrease fragmentation, by creating unity and leading with one voice. His entire career has led to the formation of Greater St. Louis, Inc.
“The group brings together civic-minded businesses throughout the bi-state metro committed to growing the region, improving its global competitiveness, and creating opportunity for all,” Hall said. He added that it was shaped through a combination of five legacy organizations to drive that vision, a vision that he continues to work tirelessly to achieve.
He said that growth is critical for both the organization and the region, and that he very purposefully set a conservative budget for the year.
Greater St. Louis, Inc. started out with minimal full-time employees, 50% smaller than its five predecessor organizations, he said. Model economic development organizations around the country, however, have three or more times those numbers, and Hall hopes to responsibly build Greater St. Louis, Inc. into the powerhouse team needed to become a leader in economic growth.
With overwhelming support from Greater St. Louis, Inc.’s investors, Hall guided the organization to achieve incredible regional wins in its inaugural year. In 2021, more than 500 business leaders and their companies invested in the organization, and in its first few months, shepherded the final version of the STL 2030 Jobs Plan, a 10-year road map to create quality jobs and advance inclusive growth throughout the St. Louis.
Throughout its first year, it contributed to the attraction of eleven new companies, the accounting of 3,000 jobs and the addition of $133 million in new annual payroll. The group successfully advocated for pro-growth public policy, like Medicaid expansion and the Missouri Wayfair Fix legislation.
Hall is first in his family to earn a college degree and the first openly LGBT-person appointed to a cabinet-level position in Missouri. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Bates College and Vanderbilt University Law School, where he served as the editor-in-chief of the Vanderbilt Law Review. Passionate about his community, Hall serves on the boards of the Missouri Technology Corporation, Hawthorn Leadership School for Girls, the Arts & Education Council, Invest Midwest, and is a member of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center Leadership Council.
Hall said that Greater St. Louis Inc. represents the first step in a longer journey to put forth a shared vision, “modeled off best in class, high-growth regions around the country.”
“It’s about having a unified voice and a shared agenda,” Hall said, “and acting as one metropolitan region anchored by its urban core is the starting point for that.”
